


Strange Turns

by ladyshadowdrake



Series: Happy Lights [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Colony, Dubious Consentacles, Friendly alien, Humor, I just like that tag, M/M, Multi, Multiple Partners, Phil is still awesome, Plot Propelling Smut, Still pretty darn fluffy, Tentacles, Winter soldier compliant, but actually the consent is not dubious at all, but we don't cry about it, everyone is a little broken, some angstiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:52:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 50,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2767139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyshadowdrake/pseuds/ladyshadowdrake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know how this works,” Tony interrupted, “Bucky is Steve colony. Colony keeps Steve warm. Colony keeps Bucky warm. He’s one of yours, so he’s one of ours. End of story."</p><p>Sequel to "Happy Lights"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Canon appropriate violence, tentacles, mild bondage, multiple partners. Triggers for PTSD, vague mentions of suicide attempts, dealing with post-mind control

The entire world could have fallen to ruin around his feet, and Steve Rogers would not lift a finger to stop it.

His head was filled with cotton, his legs moved like stilts constructed of gelatin and rubber bands. Jarvis opened the door for him with only a muted greeting that Steve did not acknowledge. He took the elevator to the penthouse suite in such numb confusion that he stared at the open doors for several minutes before he remembered to move. He was aware of people around him, but he wasn’t aware of them as people, per se. He was aware of them with the same distant knowledge he had of his own feet. They tried to speak to him, but all he felt was the vibrations of their voices against his skin. They tried to _think_ to him, but they sounded so far away.

Steve stopped in the middle of the living room. He looked around, suddenly not sure of where he was, or why, or if that couch had always been such a strange shade of purple. His knees gave out all at once and he collapsed hard to the floor. Bodies fitted against him, warm familiar limbs, comforting scents. He was aware of his clothing lifting away, but couldn’t decide if it was something he should protest or not. Gentle hands moved him, and he let them. A blue light caught his attention and he curled toward it, cupped his hands over it to keep it safe. Another body settled against his back. He felt hands on his skin, fingers wrapped around his wrists, a palm resting on his thigh, a strong grip petting over his ribs.

Steve closed his eyes and dreamed of the ocean. And Bucky.


	2. Chapter One

For a blissful moment, Steve thought he was in the colony’s safe nest. He woke by slow degrees. The tentacles holding him down eventually resolved into arms and legs, a broad chest behind him, a hand curved comfortably over the swell of his hip, fingers wrapped around his wrist, a thumb and forefinger looped over the big toe of his left foot. He opened his eyes to find Tony’s nose only inches from his. He didn’t have to move to place the rest of his team, as familiar to him as his own limbs. The pillow under his head was braced against Bruce’s thighs, the thick chest rising and falling in a comforting rhythm behind him was Thor. Natasha had her face pressed into his stomach and her hand was the delicate grip on his rear. Cuddled up behind her and grasping Steve’s knee was Clint, with Phil laying across Clint’s hip and holding on to Steve’s toe.

“Back with us?” Tony asked softly, voice pitched low to keep from waking the rest of the team.

Steve swallowed hard and started to shake without even realizing why. All around him, hands and legs and arms tightened and flexed, a soothing motion reminiscent of the undulations of the colony. The day before came crashing back to him and his ribcage collapsed down on his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. He was back in the ocean with water filling his lungs and no ice to put him to sleep, and _Bucky_ , Bucky, Bucky-

Thor startled to partial wakefulness by Steve’s hyperventilating, drawing in a snuffling breath. Taking in the scene of Steve’s panic attack, Thor simply rolled on top of him. The weight of the Aesir should have only compounded the problem, should have reminded him of the pressure of the ocean. Instead, Thor’s bulk forced his lungs to cooperate, to calm down enough to draw in air. Thor backed off until he was comfortable, but tightened the tree trunk of an arm wrapped around Steve’s chest to keep him secure.

“Sorry,” Steve rasped.

“You should be,” Tony told him. He was wide-eyed and pale as death, his mouth running off without him, because that’s what it did when he felt scared. “We leave you alone for _three days_ , and you perform a hostile takedown of the shady organization that nominally employs us, save the world from Hyrdra – freaking Hydra, seriously?- and cause, literally, _millions_ of dollars of property damage. Millions. And you didn’t even invite us. This is like Clint bringing in Phil and Natasha _all over_ again. I feel betrayed, frankly-”

Steve sealed his mouth over Tony’s and let the man talk the rest of his breath out onto Steve’s tongue. Over the eight months since the colony’s departure, Steve found there was no better way to shut him up. He was also pretty darn sure that Tony took full advantage of the observation, and he didn’t mind.

Tony was silent for only a moment after Steve pulled back. Eyes keen and observant, he asked, “You okay?”

Steve choked down an angry word, and then, unexpectedly, he started to laugh. He laughed until his sides ached, waking the whole team, and, just as unexpectedly, his laughter morphed into sobbing. Steve couldn’t stop the sobbing any more than he could the laughing, so he just buried his face in Tony’s shoulder and rode it out, drinking in Tony’s scent along with great gulps of air.

After Steve woke up from the ice, he never cried. He never once sat down and let the tremendous weight of seventy years lost, all his friends long in the grave, and the whole world gone crazy while he slept bear him into despair. But looking up at Bucky’s face and seeing only blank, unthinking, unfeeling obedience to a _mission_? He’d taken punches from his friend before– they grew up in Brooklyn and Steve was good at getting bigger boys mad- but it had only ever been one. Steve got Bucky mad, Bucky socked him one in the arm, and then it was over. Bucky would tell him he was a dunderhead for always trying to tick people off, Steve would mutter that he was just practicing, and they were back to being best friends. Steve had never once been afraid that Bucky would actually hurt him. Staring up at Bucky through one useful eye and taking that beating was the worst he’d ever gotten.

His team cuddled closer to him. He sensed no pity, shame, or embarrassment from them. They were his colony and they mourned with him. Somehow that didn’t make the crushing burden of it any easier to bear.

“Bucky?” Tony asked gently when Steve’s messy sobs quieted to hitched breaths. He knew that his red eyes and swollen nose would heal in moments. The serum would wipe away all signs of his grief and he _hated it_.

“What they _did_ to him! I can’t… seventy years, Tony!”

Steve was distantly aware of Natasha nuzzling his stomach, of Thor’s hand rubbing circles on his chest, and even Bruce, who was so sparing with his touches, stroked Steve’s hair.

“Don’t worry,” Tony said with fierce determination. “We’ll get him, bring him home, make him well. We won’t stop until we do.”

Steve froze in the collective embrace. He had expected the sympathy and the comfort, the mutual sadness, but for some reason it hadn’t occurred to him that they would be willing to _help_. To track down and rescue a man who had committed hundreds, maybe _thousands_ of assassinations over the decades. Bucky’s hand had shaped history even if he wasn’t in control of that hand at the time. Steve thought his friends would have the same reaction Sam did – _some men you don’t save, you stop._

“That’s not-”

“You know how this works,” Tony interrupted, almost angry at the shock evident in Steve’s voice. “Bucky is Steve colony. Colony keeps Steve warm. Colony keeps Bucky warm. He’s one of yours, so he’s one of ours. End of story.”

Steve pushed away from Tony’s neck to examine his strange family. As debilitating as his grief had been, his relief was almost heavier. “I don’t deserve you.”

Tony kissed him again, and then reached down and hauled Natasha up between them. Phil and Clint rearranged themselves without a word. Steve tucked Natasha’s head under his chin and apologized silently through the headspace they shared. Steve may have seen the mutilated ghost of his best friend, but the three SHIELD agents experienced the end of their world while they were still awake to see it crumble into the ocean. The sheer magnitude of what they’d done stole his breath away.

 _We’ll survive,_ Clint said stoically. _We’re alive, and we’re together. And I would rather watch it burn than feel Hydra’s collar around my neck any day of the week._

 _You know,_ Tony put in. _I have recently become rather attached to things with tentacles, so I am offended on the behalf of all tentacled things everywhere that Hydra is such a freaking collective asshole._

In the midst of the darkness, the honest laughter was cleansing.

~*~

“Captain Rogers?” Jarvis’ called, waking Steve and Tony immediately, though he wasn’t sure if anyone else roused. Thor, snoring happily against Steve’s neck, certainly didn’t. “A Sam Wilson is waiting in the lobby.”

Steve blinked at the ceiling for a few seconds, kicking his sluggish brain into figuring out why Sam Wilson would be in the lobby, but, of course they’d just taken down Hydra ( _Again,_ Steve reminded himself bitterly), so Sam probably deserved a little of his attention. No matter how much he would like to stay in the warm pile of his friends for the next week.

“Is it an emergency?”

“No, sir.”

“Please show him to my floor and ask if he needs anything. I’ll be down shortly.” It still felt strange to even think about having a whole floor as his living space, but the words rolled smoothly off of his tongue. Living at Stark Tower made sense even before a highly unusual experience with an alien ball of tentacles telepathically linked him to his team, and even more so after crawling into Tony’s bed at the end of the day became a regular thing. He tried to remember the last time he’d been into his own kitchen and what he had in the fridge to offer to a guest. Probably not a lot.

 _I need to get up,_ Steve said into their shared headspace. Without even waking, Thor tightened his arm to dragged Steve snuggly into his chest. Steve’s breath left him in a _wuff_ of air and he struggled to refill his lungs. Together, he and Tony pried Thor’s very insistent hand off of his ribs, and Steve gently extricated himself from the pile. Still snoring, Thor reached out and felt in the space Steve vacated. He eventually found Natasha and pulled her over like a teddy bear. She cracked open one eye to give Steve a watery glare, but negated the effect by twisting in Thor’s arms and nuzzling into his neck. Steve let the team reorganize themselves, and didn’t complain when Tony rose to join him.

“I need… a shower,” Steve decided as he stretched and caught his own scent. He made his way through the hall to Tony’s bedroom. Tony ran into him from behind and wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist as they moved, resting his cheek on Steve’s back. They fell into step easily, matching strides without so much as a stumble. Steve never said it out loud, but he loved how tactile Tony was once he warmed up. Tony was so touch shy with everyone else, avoiding even the most casual contact with anyone not in their colony, but he was almost always in physical contact with one of them when he wasn’t working or in the suit. He worked a lot, so Steve still didn’t get his hands on Tony as much as he would like, but quiet moments like this nearly made up for it.

They stepped into Tony’s obscenely large walk in shower together. Tony didn’t have a bathtub, and the shower itself was larger than the average bathroom, with a cushioned bench as wide as a twin bed against one wall, and the entire space bristling with showerheads, color changing lights, and even a television. Steve had a lot of very happy memories in the shower. Tony wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist from behind once more as the water gushed out from every faucet. Normally Steve protested using more than one showerhead and Tony argued that the tower recycled everything and they weren’t actually wasting water, and Steve gave Tony his stubborn look, and then Tony pushed him onto the bench and made him forget what they were arguing over. Steve didn’t even bother with the pretense. He let the water hit him from all sides and grabbed Tony by one arm to haul him around. Tony attached his mouth to Steve’s chest and sucked water off one pectoral, running his teeth over Steve’s sensitive nipple. Steve tipped his head back, water sluicing over his eyes and mouth, and his vision went dark. The hiss of the showerheads turned into the dull pulse of being submerged, the pressure of the ocean on his limbs-

Before he was aware of anything else, he was sitting on the floor with his head between his knees, and Tony leaning over him with a hand on the back of his neck.

“Shower off!” Tony ordered sharply. The water shut off with barely a groan of pipes. Steve screwed his eyes shut and struggled to breathe, to banish the memory of Bucky’s face above him, of falling backwards with the burning wreckage of the helicarrier following him down, Bucky lost somewhere to the flames.

Tony stayed with him, one hand rubbing in circles on his chest, the other arm wrapped firmly around Steve’s ribs, flexing in a soothing ripple. He didn’t say anything, and Steve was grateful for the simple comfort, the lack of judgment.

“I spent seventy years under water,” Steve said finally. His voice sounded distant and sharp in his ears, a faraway clatter of breaking glass. “I spent seventy years under water. Why would a few minutes break me apart like this?”

He didn’t expect Tony to answer, because there was no answer to something like that. But Tony shifted his position to slide his legs under Steve’s bent knees and put his chin on Steve’s shoulder. “I can’t take baths,” he said.

Steve glanced at him and Tony gave him a pinched smile. “I’m mostly okay in the pool, and the ocean, but I can’t stand bathtubs. Even just looking at one sometimes makes me feel like…” Tony shifted uncomfortably. “Like there’s water in my lungs.”

“So we can be aquaphobes together now?” Steve asked, and couldn’t help a breathy chuckle that threatened to turn into manic laughter. He swallowed it down.

“I understand that you’re Captain America, and by definition you’re better at everything than any of the rest of us mere mortals,” Tony told him firmly, but not unkindly. “But you can’t expect yourself to get over this in one night, Steve. Over the last three days, you’ve been shot all to hell, thought Fury was dead –which, for the record, I found it more traumatizing when I heard he was still alive, but that’s just me. You found out that the organization you’ve been working for is actually an organization that you sacrificed your life to defeat almost a century ago, and that your best friend has been tortured and mind controlled for the last seventy years. And on top of all that, you had some good old fashioned fisticuffs with said best friend on a burning helicarrier that then dropped you, unconscious, into the sea. Did I miss anything?”

Steve rested his head against Tony’s and summoned a tired smile. “I took a shower with Natasha.”

“You brave, brave man. No wonder you can’t handle the shower.”

Rolling his eyes, Steve shoved Tony lightly on one shoulder. “It was nice. She let me wash her hair.”

“I would let you wash my hair,” Tony muttered, pulling him closer in undisguised possessiveness.

Steve stayed against the cool tiles for another minute, soaking in the comfort of Tony’s body against his, and the solidity of the tiles around them. He nodded and urged Tony up, and then retrieved the bottle of expensive shampoo. “Main shower head on,” he called into the ceiling. A single faucet turned on at the far end and Steve eyed it warily, waiting for the panic to swamp him again.

Tony stepped into the spray, wetting himself quickly. Steve was sure he was also being intentionally distracting with his lovely back on display, shoulder muscles moving under the water. The suit did a lot of the work for him, but not all of the work, and it showed in the strength of his back and shoulders. Steve reached out to trail gentle fingers over Tony’s skin, counting the scars and remembering the battles that put them there. Tony let him explore for a minute, and then turned around and took the shampoo from him. He grabbed Steve’s wrist and poured a generous amount in his palm. It smelled strongly of mint and tea tree oil, a scent that Steve associated with Tony and was unsurprisingly calming.

“Chop, chop! Less ogling, more hair washing,” Tony told him imperiously, turning around and tipping his head back toward Steve in invitation.

Steve concentrated on his task and made it through the rest of the shower without incident. _One day at a time,_ he told himself.

He didn’t realize he’d said that in their headspace until Natasha answered, _That’s all you can ever do._

~*~

Steve didn’t protest Tony accompanying him to meet Sam. Even if he tried to pull rank to get Tony to stay out of the meeting, he knew Tony would just tap into the camera system and watch anyways. And, Steve privately admitted, he enjoyed how protective Tony was being, and how jealous Sam would probably make him. Steve’s exposure to the colony had opened his eyes to a lot of things about himself that he wasn’t consciously aware of – he really liked to be taken care of, he really didn’t like to be alone, and he really loved Tony Stark. He didn’t mind showing the other man off a little, even to someone like Sam, who wouldn’t feel either impressed or challenged. They kept their relationship out of the public eye by necessity, so it was nice to show him off to _someone_.

“Sam,” Steve greeted, inclining his head to the other man as they stepped into the living room from the elevator. Sam startled, quickly put the remote down and jumped to his feet. Behind him, the television clicked off on a view of London.

“Whatcha watching?” Tony asked with mock cheerfulness that, in Steve’s experience, always hid a nasty barb. “If you’re looking for the good porn, you’ll have to hack into Clint’s account. Or go two floors down.”

Sam’s complexion hid blushes well, but Steve still caught the hint of a dark flush across his cheeks. “Sorry, Cap, the ah…” Sam made a vague gesture to the ceiling. “Told me to settle in, that you’d be awhile. He didn’t think you’d mind if I caught up on some TV.”

“The ‘ah’ is Jarvis. He’s polite like that.” Tony crossed his arms over his chest. He was dressed very intentionally in a black tank top that hugged him like a lover, the arc reactor’s glow easily visible through the fabric. His arms and shoulders looked fantastic in tank tops, and he knew it.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Sam, this is Tony Stark. Tony, this is Sam Wilson. The man who saved Natasha and I while you were away.”

It was a low blow, and from Tony’s dark look, he caught it. _That was cold. I wasn’t off gallivanting at parties or something, you know! And you and Natasha would have been just fine without him!_

 _Stop puffing your chest out and I’ll stop aiming pins at you_ , Steve told him blithely. He hadn’t learned it in the first twenty-one years of his life, Hydra hadn’t been able to drive the point home, but three years of exposure to Anthony Stark had taught him the benefits of an underhanded blow to the ego.

“Uh… Nice to meet you, Mr. Stark. I’m a big fan of yours. Iron Man’s. You. That is… Your work is inspirational, and the Falcon project came from abandoned Stark Tech, and-“

“Falcon?” Tony’s expression cleared to a smile, the public one he wore for fans and paparazzi. Steve hated that smile. “I consulted on that… maybe fifteen years ago? I didn’t realize they’d taken it out of the box.” He crossed in front of Steve and led Sam to the attached kitchen, where Sam took a stool at the bar and Tony leaned his forearms on the counter.

Steve was dismayed to feel a little twinge of his own jealousy as Sam and Tony gravitated toward each other, clucking like a pair of old hens over the Falcon project and the military trying to reactivate it without bringing Tony back in, really, was just asking for trouble. Steve sat down at the bar and listened to them chatter. The feeling of jealousy morphed into warm contentment. He liked listening to Tony’s technobabble even if he rarely understood it, and it was nice to see him talking with another enthusiast even if Sam’s understanding of the tech was limited to its practical uses.

“We’re going to have to do some outfitting for you,” Tony declared after several minutes of this, interview apparently over. “We’re not going to have you running around with inferior tech if you’re going to be helping us out here.”

Sam stilled uncertainly and cast a glance at Steve. Steve nodded to him. “Everything I know, Tony knows. Anything you can say to me, you can say to him. I would just tell him right after anyway.”

Nodding, Sam turned his attention to the windows and the beautiful view of the New York skyline. “So the world’s taken kind of a nosedive overnight,” he said finally. “And I was a part of that.”

“We did the right thing,” Steve reassured him. He was pleased to hear how steady and confident his voice sounded. It felt like being back in the War, when he might have been uncertain but knew that he had to maintain that calm for his men. He had to be the one to be steady, so they could lean on him, trust that when he gave orders, he knew what he was doing. Most of the time he did.

“I know,” Sam gave Steve a tight smile. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we just brought down the biggest security force the world has. There’s gonna be trouble, and lots of it. I can’t step away from that, make a mess and just wipe my hands clean.” He straightened up and locked his eyes on Steve’s. “Whatever you’re in for, I’m right here with you.”

“We’re going after the Winter Soldier,” Tony told him.

Sam nodded again. “Man needs going after.”

“We’re bringing him back alive, and we’re going to help him. If you’re not okay with that, we’ll stick you to city-sitting duty. But you’re not going to get in our way,” Tony warned. His expression, so open with excitement a minute before, locked down into a dangerous, calculating calm.

Sam shook his head, but he held up his hands in acquiescence and threw a glance at Steve. “I told you. Whatever you’re in for, I’m right here with you.”

“Cool. Workshop it is. Oh, just to make one more thing clear.” Tony straightened up, grabbed Steve’s wrist and yanked him off the barstool. Steve stumbled, eyes widening in surprise, and crashed into Tony’s chest. Tony’s free hand tangled in his hair as he stretched up to seal his mouth to Steve’s in a brief, fierce kiss. He pulled away and gave Sam a narrowed-eyed glare over Steve’s shoulder. “That going to be a problem?”

Steve yanked back with an outraged hiss of, “Tony!”

_He had to be warned. I’m not keeping my hands off of you just to protect his tender sensibilities._

_Menace,_ Steve told him. _You’re an absolute menace._

“Uh… no problem,” Sam stuttered, eyes comically wide and face visibly flushed. “Just… don’t do it in uniform, okay? I’m not sure my heart can handle _Tony Stark_ molesting Captain America.”

Tony considered his request carefully, even though they made it a point to more-or-less keep their hands to themselves when they were on the job anyway. “Fine, I can make that compromise,” he said as if granting a grave favor. “Now, workshop.” He smacked Steve’s ass on the way out of the kitchen and reached over to grab Sam around the shoulders. Sam looked back over his shoulder at Steve in something like horror, but Steve only gave him a smile and shrugged. He asked for it, after all.

 _If Fury calls, don’t talk to him without someone else there,_ Tony ordered after the elevator swooshed closed.

 _I’ll grab Phil, Clint, and Natasha,_ Steve promised.

 _Damn straight you will,_ Clint put in, with Phil and Natasha’s agreement fast on his heels.

Steve didn’t argue against having back up; he was not looking forward to the inevitable talk with Fury. The blood in his veins ran hot whenever he thought of the man and the sheer magnitude of the secrets he kept, the lies he spun. Compartmentalization. Sounded good in theory, but then the right hand is doing things behind the left hand’s back, and the feet are so out of the loop that they march right off the cliff while the hands plot. He still felt a cold flush of fear when he remembered the sight of those helicarriers and the knowledge of what they were meant for. Just one more plane he’d gone down with.

As if the mere thought of him summoned him like the devil, Jarvis announced, “Captain, Director Fury is on the line for you.”

Steve sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a slow breath. “Put him on hold in the conference room.” He didn’t usually go in for the power play, but he wanted Fury to know who held the cards this time around. When Steve first woke up, he had no leverage, no one knew he was alive, there was no one he could turn to for help. It would be different this time.

_Phil, Natasha, Clint. Get up and get dressed. No SHEILD gear, no suits and ties. Black fatigues, blue tee shirts. I’ll meet you in the conference room in fifteen minutes, and not a second before._

There was a moment of silence in their shared headspace that felt like a held breath. And then Phil Coulson said, _Right away, sir,_ and that was that. He no longer had three agents on his team loaned from SHILED. They were his all the way. Really, they’d been his since the colony changed their lives, but now it was time to make sure Fury knew it.

They did him one better. Steve felt his face heat up when he turned the corner to the conference room and found the three former agents outside in their black fatigues, sky blue tee shirts, and partially zipped-up hoodies with his shield emblazoned on the left breast. The backs said _Steve Colony_ in bold red letters. They were a gag gift from Tony at Christmas. He thought he’d managed to confiscate them all, but he was obviously entertaining a naïve fantasy to think Tony wouldn’t have a spare set waiting to hide in their closets.

“Not quite what I had in mind,” Steve muttered as he moved to the door. His teammates fell in behind him.

“What?” Clint asked, the picture of innocence. “It’s cold.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but he pushed the double doors open and let Fury take in the scene from the conference room camera. The director looked tired, as a man returned from the dead had a right to be, but his visible eye was still sharp. A muscle in his jaw twitched and his eye narrowed. The gesture was not lost on him. Steve sat down. He expected his teammates to sit down with him, but they remained standing behind his chair. He wasn’t sure whether to feel warm with the support, or uncomfortable with the dictator image he was presenting, but that could be discussed later.

 _We know how to stage a scene, sir. Just relax,_ Phil said patiently.

“Captain. Nice of you to carve some time out of your day to see me,” Fury greeted in a dangerous voice.

Steve ignored his tone. He was so far beyond catering to Nick Fury that he didn’t even feel guilty when he replied, “What can I do for you, Nick?”

The tick in Fury’s jaw went haywire. “We’ve got a mess to clean up. I need Agents Coulson, Barton, and Romanov back at HQ to salvage what we can from this giant fuckup.”

“Not going to happen.” Steve set his jaw, kept his back straight, and braced his arms on the table, hands folded neatly in front of him.

Fury glared. “Not going to happen? Listen up, _son_ , I’ve got every government agency from every major country in the world demanding to get into SHIELD facilities to confiscate dangerous technology and information, I don’t know which of my people I can trust, three facilities in the Middle East and one in Asia have already been confirmed handed over to terrorists, I’ve got operatives in the field whose lives are in mortal peril since we essentially just unilaterally blew their cover. Not only that, but every wannabe super powered criminal bad guy in the world is on the fast track to taking advantage of our little mess here. So, tell me again what’s not gonna be happening with _my agents?_ ” Fury leaned forward so his face filled the screen, his teeth very white and very large on the conference window. “You know what, don’t answer that.” His gaze transferred to Phil. “Get your agents and get your sorry ass back home, Coulson.”

“Sorry, Director,” Phil said with easy grace. Steve could hear the unruffled smile that earned him the unending fear of junior agents everywhere. “It appears that I am no longer under your command.”

Steve carefully masked a sigh of relief. He knew, intellectually, that they were _his_ , and became even more his every day. But knowing that and hearing it out loud were two different things.

 _Thank you,_ Steve said.

 _Wasn’t aware that wasn’t common knowledge,_ Phil replied blithely.

“Director Fury,” Steve said, interrupting the man’s enraged sputtering. “I am aware of the ramifications of our actions yesterday. We all knew what would happen when we took down those helicarriers and exposed SHIELD. And I am not going to walk away from the mess. I propose that we work together – concentrate on cleaning your house, find out who you can trust. In the meantime, send us the areas of biggest concern, and we’ll do what we can. It might also be time to reach out to some of our super powered allies for assistance,” he suggested. Fury had a deep distrust of other groups with abilities, mostly because they refused to be controlled by SHIELD.

Fury’s lips twisted as if he was fighting to hold words in his mouth. “You picked one hell of a time to secede.”

“You shouldn’t have been keeping secrets from me,” Steve replied. “From now on, SHIELD and the Avengers are separate entities, but, I hope, still allies.”

Fury opened his mouth to say something hot, but his attention was pulled briefly off camera. He sighed heavily, shook his head and said, “I don’t got time to be having this damn conversation with you now. I’ll send you what we have, take care of what you can. Keep me in the loop.”

“Will do. Good luck, Director.”

“Whatever.” Fury clicked the screen off and the whole conference room seemed to sag, chairs, table, even the carpet.

“That was fun,” Clint announced. Steve turned to see him grinning. “Not every day you get to tell your old boss to go fuck it.”

“Please tell me you weren’t mouthing things at him,” Steve begged.

“Give me more credit,” Clint whined. “I was blank-eyed the whole time.”

“I was the one mouthing things at him,” Natasha said. Her voice maintained her normal tone of cool unconcern, but Steve could see the heat in her eyes and knew that Fury wasn’t going to be forgiven any time soon for faking his death, for not trusting her, for letting her be used the way he did.

“Orders, sir?” Phil asked while the silence stretched.

“As soon as the communication comes in from SHIELD, see what we can do to start putting out fires, and where our time would be best spent. Natasha, you have contacts with the other groups in the area, don’t you?”

“Professor Xavier and I have exchanged words,” she said noncommittally. Steve found that he didn’t really want to know which words those were, so he didn’t ask.

“Please start reaching out and see if we can coordinate efforts.” She nodded and pulled her phone out of her back pocket, thumbs flying over the keys.

“Clint, please get the jet warm. As soon as we know where we’re going, we’re wheels up.”

“What about Bucky, sir?” Clint asked gently.

Steve winced. He’d tried hard to keep Bucky out of his thoughts, knowing that they couldn’t just leave the world to burn itself to the ground while he chased after one man, even a man as important as Bucky. He wanted to, though, wanted to just give the world both middle fingers, take his bike out of the garage, and disappear.

“Bringing him back to the world isn’t going to do anyone a lick of good if there’s no world to bring him back to. But,” he added, more for himself than anyone, “It is imperative that we get to him before Hydra, or anyone else.”

“We can task Jarvis to search,” Natasha suggested, not looking up from her phone. “And tell everyone else to keep eyes out for him as well.”

Steve nodded and dismissed them all with a wave and a grateful smile. _Tony, how are you doing with Sam down there?_

 _I’m a miracle worker, baby, but thirty minutes would be impressive even for me._ Tony replied. _Chit chat with Fury go well?_

 _About as well as a rhino in a Japanese garden,_ Clint quipped.

 _Can we get Jarvis looking for Bucky? We’re going to be very busy for the next… long while,_ Steve said with a deep sigh. Exhaustion settled into his bones as he considered exactly what they had in front of them. SHIELD in shambles and all the world’s secrets exposed. The truth of thousands of cover ups, pieces of technology the world wasn’t ready to have, the identities of spies in every country… Steve had no idea how selective Natasha was about revealing ‘all’ the secrets, but even just a tenth of them was enough to put the world in chaos. World War III could be looming over the horizon.

 _Jarvis has been looking for Bucky since we got home yesterday,_ Tony told him, _Nothing conclusive yet, but he’s been directed to let us know if he catches any trace of him._

 _Thank you, Tony._ Alone in the conference room, Steve pressed his hands together and clasped them between his knees, trembling faintly with the relief and the swell of warmth he felt for Tony and his team.

 _Looks like the Middle East is our next stop,_ Phil said. _I’ve been telling Fury for years that storing anything in that region was a mistake._

_Tony, please tell Sam to wait for further orders. We’re going to have to finish outfitting him later – we need you._

_Okay, but if you give me ten more minutes I can have him in wings._

_I thought you said-_

_That thirty minutes wasn’t enough time. Forty five? I can work with that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are again. I honestly was surprised that I wrote “Happy Lights” at all, and then I was blown away by the amazingly positive response. When I finished “Happy Lights” I had only the vaguest notion that I might write a sequel someday. Well, here we are about a month later, and not only do we have a sequel, but it is more than twice the length of the original.
> 
> This story is more involved and a good bit deeper than “Happy Lights,” so we actually are going to explore some of the meaning-of-life type questions that I warned you not to expect in the last story. 
> 
> I want to also say THANK YOU so much to everyone who commented, bookmarked, and kudo’d “Happy Lights.” I love chatting with you guys, and those conversations did have some impact on how “Strange Turns” developed. As a note, I DO respond to comments – I’m pretty sure I’m batting 100% on that right now – so please do comment and I will get back to you. 
> 
> I’m slowly figuring out Tumblr, so come visit me for updates, teasers, etc: http://lightshadowverisimilitude.tumblr.com/
> 
> AAAAND: this is important so READ THIS ONE:::: There are some fantastically amazing artists in this fandom, and I would really to start an exchange on this!! If you are an artist, reach out to me for details – or if you know an artist, please send them my way. I am happy to exchange fic for art, and a ficlet-finders-fee for anyone who drags their artistic friend to me.


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

“Iron Man, get out of there!” Steve shouted, throwing his shield to ricochet off a bolder. Bucky pulled away from Iron Man for the second necessary to throw up his metal arm and block the projectile. Steve automatically positioned himself to catch it on the rebound and Tony wrenched himself out of Bucky’s human grip. He fired his repulsors and made it far enough away for Sam to swoop under him. Sam turned over, dragged in his wings, and drove both feet hard into Bucky’s chest.

With a grunt, Bucky flew backwards, hit the bolder Steve dented with his shield, and slammed into the snow. He reached out and barely missed Sam’s feet as Sam flipped out his wings and engaged propulsion to get himself out of range.

“Window open,” Clint announced half a blink before an arrow sailed out of the trees and buried into Bucky’s thigh. Bellowing in pain and surprise, Bucky yanked the arrow out in a spray of blood, twisted, and threw it right at Steve.

Steve turned but caught the arrow in the bicep of his shield arm. He yanked it out, but what remained of the sedative had already done its job. He stumbled two steps and fell to his knees, vision blurring as heat rushed outward from his arm. His body would metabolize the poison in minutes, but minutes was a deadly long time in a fight against the Winter Soldier.

_Steve-!_

_-Cap!_

_Shit! That’s enough to knock out an elephant-_

_Say something!_

_I’m… very warm,_ Steve reported. He shook his head, trying to clear it. He knew there was some reason that he should get to his feet, but he felt like he was swimming in warm gelatin and couldn’t figure out why he would want to stand up. A distant pain impacted across his stomach, making the world spin briefly, and then he felt a heavy weight land partially on top of him. The weight lifted and he felt cold for the lack of it. A distant part of his brain registered that it was Bucky, swaying and drunk on the poison as he stumbled into the trees in a mad rush.

 _Well… at least we know he’s not_ completely _immune to the sleepy time arrows_ , Clint said with a heavy sigh.

Steve’s vision cleared and he became aware of the snow against his face, the shape of his shield digging into his side, and Tony crouched next to him, one red metal knee sinking into the snow.

“You still with us, Cap?”

“Yeah. Bucky?” Steve rolled slowly over to take the pressure off his wrist. It was sprained from the angle he fell onto the shield, but already healing.

“Went right over the cliff and vanished. Falcon took off after him, but looks like we missed him. Again,” Tony reported ruefully. He chuckled, his breath blossoming in the cold air. “Six months, ten engagements, and he somehow manages to duck us every time. Got to say, I’m impressed.”

“He’s gone,” Sam announced over the comms. They’d taken to wearing them again for Sam’s benefit, and Steve had to admit that it was strange, and also made him feel oddly vulnerable to have the tech in his ear again.

“Sir?” Coulson called aloud. “Request coming in from SHIELD. Chitauri tech not too far from here. Looks like vacation is over.”

Steve sighed heavily and let Tony pull him to his feet. _We almost had him._

 _This is why you never get to train the bad guys, ever again,_ Tony retorted.

_What’s that supposed to mean?_

_It_ means _that you taught him way too well. No bad guy boot camp for you anymore._

Steve glared hard at Tony, shoved him backward, and stumbled with the last of the poison disrupting his equilibrium. He pointed in the general direction of Iron Man’s face. “First of all I’m not the one who’s been making him into an assassin these last seventy years! And secondly, he’s not a bad guy, damnitall!”

“Cap-“

“And I want you to stop calling him that! You say you want to help bring him home, but you keep _saying_ that, and he’s going to think that we’re just more bullies trying to abuse him-!” He knew he was slurring, and he was having trouble thinking about the words before he said them, but they were true, so that was okay.

“Steve!” Tony’s faceplate flipped up and he reached out to catch Steve by one flailing arm. Steve shoved at him again, and then knocked him across the chest with the shield. Tony let go in surprise, but then caught him once more and reeled Steve tight into his chest. “Steve, stop. I’m sorry. I won’t say it again.”

Steve glared for another minute, the world still a little fuzzy around the edges. “Don’t.”

“I won’t. I just said I won’t,” Tony said reasonably. He leaned forward and set his lips awkwardly to Steve’s forehead with the suit getting in the way.

“You guys said you weren’t going to do that in uniform,” Sam complained, landing next to them in a flurry of snow and the brief heat of his repulsor powered wings. The wings collapsed to his back, lighter and more compact that the original Falcon wings. True to Tony’s perfectionist personality, they were also more powerful, more maneuverable, and looked sleeker than the originals as well.

“You’re just jealous,” Natasha commented matter-of-factly over the comm.

“I am _not_ jealous of you guys’ freaky group love thing.”

Steve said nothing, but he couldn’t help a tired smile. Sam took the news of their ‘freaky group love thing’ with surprisingly alacrity, but he was obviously still a touch uncomfortable with their living situation. Steve thought the telepathic connection probably had more to do with it than occasionally walking in on them after a mission in a big heap on Tony’s living room floor.

“Jealous,” Clint agreed.

“Y’all are messed up, is what I’m saying,” Sam continued, falling into step on Tony’s left as they trekked back to the quinjet.

“Definitely jealous.” Phil’s voice was as calm as if delivering the weather report and that somehow made it even more poignant.

 _Stop teasing him,_ Steve said, feeling tired as his body flushed the poison out through his pores. The faintly sour scent of his sweat made him wrinkle his nose and he was grateful for the chemical shower aboard the jet.

 _We only tease him because we like him,_ Clint soothed.

 _Don’t you dare trick him into having sex with you,_ Steve warned, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

 _Like Clint doesn’t already have enough to keep him busy?_ Natasha’s tone was vague, but Steve could practically feel her cat’s smile as if it was tugging at his own lips.

_Yeah, even I’m not that nuts._

Steve was not reassured. He sighed and let it go. “Any updates on the situation in Oregon?”

“Hulk and Thor are mopping up. The giant mecha suit is in pieces, but there are still a few dozen terrorists to deal with. SHIELD has a containment team on the ground. Thor and Bruce should be able to join us in Ontario as soon as the scene is cleared up.”

“Good. With Chitauri tech, we might need them.”

 _Hulk?_ Steve asked cautiously into their headspace. Through trial and error, they were learning to filter out individual voices, and to some extent even speak to a select member of their strange colony. With Hulk, it was hit or miss.

 _Star Man!!!_ Hulk bellowed back to the whole colony, unmistakably joyous. The colony’s fix had made it possible for Bruce to exert some control over his other half, but it was a near thing. His higher brain functions still shut down when he was in his other form, and had the reasoning skills of a three year-old with two settings: jubilant and tantrum. _Hulk smash good,_ Hulk crowed. _Hulk smash better than Lightning Man._

 _Aye,_ Thor agreed. _Tis true. Hulk is very proficient at smashing. We should be through here very shortly and shall join you at the site of the next disaster. All is not well with our lost brother?_ Thor asked sadly. He understood Steve’s pain better than perhaps anyone else. Despite all his brother had done, he missed Loki dearly.

 _Next time_ , Tony cut in gently. _We’ll get him._

~*~

_Two weeks later…_

“Clint, wait!”

Steve came to a stuttering stop, reached out, and grabbed Clint’s belt with Sam’s warning still ringing in his ear. He threw all of his weight backwards and they both went tumbling down the hill, propelled by the shockwave of the explosion set off by Clint’s foot.

“I’ve lost him,” Sam said wearily. “Iron Man, you got eyes on our boy?”

“Negative.” _Steve, Clint?_ Tony’s voice, mental and vocal, was tight with worry and frustration.

“We’re good,” Clint said, patting Steve down quickly to make sure, and then holding up his foot to check that it was still attached to his leg. He heaved a giant sigh and collapsed back onto the grass.

“We’re good,” Steve agreed on an exhale.

“Bucky is in the wind. Again.”

~*~

_Five weeks later…_

They trudged back into the tower covered in drying purple goo, and smelling like sulfur and burnt cat fur. The hangar felt terribly far away from the nearest shower. A quick turn in the chemical shower was not going to cut it with this one. Steve’s entire body felt like one giant bruise and he was considering putting out a general Public Service Announcement to all aspiring young scientists to _please_ not experiment on themselves. Seeing that pretty young lady turn into a giant purple blob of hate was going on his nightmare list for the next decade.

“That… was terrible,” Tony announced.

“You were in the suit the whole time.” Clint shoved at Tony hard, sending him clomping forward a few feet. Clint was covered head to toe in the goo, having been directly under the blob when it came apart.

“Uh, my faceplate was open at exactly the wrong moment,” Tony retorted, turning around to walk backward. He pointed to his head with one finger, carrying his helmet under the opposite arm. Despite dunking his head into the river and then climbing into the chemical shower, his hair was matted with the goo and it was flaking off on his cheeks. “I had to close the faceplate over this. I was trapped with it.”

“I think I got it in my mouth,” Bruce said, distinctly green around the gills, but thankfully not actually green. He earned sympathetic looks from the team as they crossed the wide floor to the elevators. The engagement had called for his knowledge of biology and radiation, and for once they weren’t half carrying him back to his bed.

“My shower is the closest.” Tony blocked the control pad with his body and pushed the penthouse key. “Unless you all would like to stay crammed into the tiny elevator down to your floors.”

“This is an acceptable solution!” Thor decided. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared balefully at their reflection in the polished doors. “This scent is more unpleasant than the piss of icebears.”

“Shower,” Bruce agreed, and then, shocking them all, added, “Team cuddle night?”

Bruce had never once suggested team cuddle night. Most nights he had to be more-or-less coerced into joining them in the living room, and it was a slow process to get him down from the couch. No one wanted to spook him by showing their surprise, so they were all very casual in agreeing. Steve could tell they were pleased by the slow thawing from the least tactile member of their colony. He held back on the urge to hug Bruce only because they were all sticky with chemically charged electroplasmic goo. With a flash of insight, Steve realized that Bruce probably chose the night when they were covered in chemically charged electroplasmic goo to volunteer cuddles on the assumption that he wouldn’t instantly get mobbed with hugs.

“Okay, I am going to jump in this shower because I think this stuff is burning my skin off. But I swear, if you try to pull me into your weird-ass love pile, I will quit. I will not come back to work tomorrow, just see if I don’t.” Sam stood stiffly at the back of the elevator between Natasha and Clint, doing his utmost best not to touch Thor in front of him. Clint eyed him sideways, and then leaned back against the wall and looped an arm around Sam’s waist to link a finger in Natasha’s belt. “Barton, I swear to God-“

“Which God?” Clint asked. “Thor’s a god. Are you swearing to him?”

“I am not a deity in truth,” Thor corrected over his shoulder, “Merely mistakenly labeled as such in Midgardian mythology.” He delivered the last with the air of a man correcting a misconception not for the first time, and not expecting it to be the last.

 _Cut it out, Clint,_ Steve ordered. The doors opened on the penthouse and they escaped the elevator with collective gasps for fresh air.

_What? I was just fixing Nat’s belt._

_You don’t even want him – stop teasing him or he really will quit._

_He enjoys being teased,_ Phil interrupted. _Or he would have quit already. I found many junior agents behave that way early on. He wouldn’t feel like he was part of the team if he wasn’t being teased._

“Jarvis, get the shower on, full blast, all nozzles, and _hot_. And run the sonics too, please, for the love of Tesla,” Tony called as they trooped en masse through the bedroom, shedding purple stained clothing as they went. Tony tossed Steve a brief glance of concern, but Steve shook his head. He’d only had three incidents in the shower, not counting the first, and thought he would be more comfortable with his team around him in any event.

Natasha was the first out of her catsuit and into the shower, with Tony right on her heels. Steve stayed out long enough to help Thor get his armor off, and Sam stepped in last, parking himself under the showerhead closest to the door and scrubbing at his skin with his fingernails.

“I am going to have this smell in my skin forever,” he moaned unhappily, and didn’t even protest when Clint upended a bottle of body soap over his shoulders and took a loofa to his back.

Steve eased through the press of his team and closed his eyes under the spray. He felt Tony’s familiar hands on his shoulders, and the scent of mint and tea tree oil cut through the stench of the goo. The sonics hummed softly and Steve curled his back towards the wall, even though he knew that didn’t help at all. Tony explained the sonics as invisible scrubbing hands, and heaven knew they needed all the scrubbing hands they could get. Steve helped Phil scour the goo off his neck, and luxuriated in Natasha’s skilled hands kneading at the sore places down his back. The team drifted out of the shower in ones and twos, leaving Tony and Steve alone under the jet streams. The steam-filled space smelled of mint, rosemary, and musk, with a faint hint of grapefruit cutting through the warmer scents.

“I think this is the first time I’ve had you to myself in a week,” Tony murmured once Thor declared himself clean and strode out of the shower. Tony backed Steve up to the bench and pushed him until he sat down. Steve groaned as he took his weight off his legs. The bench called to him from the moment he finally felt clean, but he stayed on his feet because he wasn’t sure he would get back up if he sat down. Tony leaned over him and they shared a slow kiss, Steve lifting his hands to hold Tony’s hips. He relaxed against the wall and let Tony explore his mouth. He missed leisurely kisses when they got busy. The last week and a half had been a nightmare of accidents and attacks, breaking them up into three teams at one point, and culminating in the aforementioned insecure teenaged genius blowing herself and half a city block to purple smelly hell. The only consolation of the whole night was that the girl was left vomiting on the floor when they finally punctured her bubble instead of blown to violet bits.

“Stop thinking,” Tony told him, breaking away from his lips. He mouthed across Steve’s jaw and wrapped his agile tongue around Steve’s earlobe. Steve shivered and promptly shelved the whole exhausting mess that had become their lives over the last eight months. He ran one hand up Tony’s side, carefully avoided the deep bruise over his ribs, and cupped the back of his head, encouraging his open mouthed kisses down Steve’s neck. Tony slid smoothly to his knees and dragged his mouth down the swell of Steve’s right pectoral and latched onto his nipple. Lights popped behind Steve’s eyelids and he arched into Tony’s mouth, shifting on the bed restlessly.

 _Team cuddle night,_ Clint reminded them, breaking briefly into their private world of mint steam.

 _Order Chinese, fight over the movie. Be there in a minute,_ Tony said before Steve could even get his mind put back in one piece.

“Tony, we should-aaah-!” Steve dropped his head back as Tony took his other nipple between two fingers and gave it a sharp twist. Tony detached his mouth and looked up at Steve with a satisfied smirk.

“We should what?” he asked innocently, letting the water pour off of Steve’s chest and over his lips. He opened his mouth and darted his tongue out to catch the stream and it made Steve jerk with a flash of arousal.

“We should…” Steve gave up and dragged Tony’s mouth to his for a less leisurely kiss. When Tony pulled away, he was panting in the warm air, flushed with the steam and Steve’s mouth. Steve ran a thumb over Tony’s lower lip. “The lips God gave you…” he murmured.

Because it was Tony and he couldn’t resist, he nipped at Steve’s finger and asked, “Which god?”

Steve rolled his eyes, but whatever reply he might have made was cut off as Tony dropped back on his heels and, easy as breathing, took Steve’s cock into his mouth. Steve tightened one hand in Tony’s hair, which only made the other man groan approvingly, and braced the other on the bench. His hips lurched unsteadily off the cushion and Tony flowed with the motion, entire body moving in a comfortable sway like bobbing on the surface of the waves. The world narrowed down to soft white fog, the sound of Tony’s hand moving on himself, and the wet heat of Tony’s mouth on him. Steve scrapped his nails over the back of Tony’s neck, fisted a hand in his hair, and murmured encouragement as Tony’s motion took on a distinctly frantic edge.

“Come for me,” Steve ordered breathlessly. He tipped his head back against the wall and arched up, body tense and shaking as he hovered on the edge. He repeated his command like a mantra, growing louder and more insistent with each repetition. It was one of the few situations where Tony followed orders without protest. He shouted around Steve’s cock, mouth stilling briefly while his body locked up. It didn’t matter; Steve let the sounds bear him over a shuddering edge and cried out for the simple joy of making noise.

He didn’t realize he’d been repeating the command over their telepathic bond until Natasha announced, _Team Cuddle night delayed for thirty minutes. Barton, Coulson, downstairs._

 _Jeeze,_ said the rarely heard Jane Foster, _You guys have all the fun and I’m on the other side of the country._

Steve was happy he could blame his blush on the steam, but Tony still laughed at him anyway. He dropped his forehead to Steve’s knee, and Steve only smiled as he ran his fingers through Tony’s soaking hair.

~*~

The colony would love their living room. Over the months, Tony had exchanged the tasteful minimalist furniture for comfortable, over stuffed pieces scattered around the large space. Most of the floor was taken up by a custom mattress set down half a step, the space filled with a veritable nest of pillows and cushions. It was a good sight more comfortable than cuddling on a rug, and more inviting than most beds Steve encountered. He emerged from the hallway to find Thor passed out on a pile of cushions, startlingly still, and not even snoring.

“He’s still alive,” Bruce told him. He was stretched out a few feet away from Thor, dressed in comfortable sweats with tablet in hand. “I checked a few minutes ago.”

“We have been running him kind of hard. Apparently even Aesir have limits.” Steve gave Thor a worried look. He stepped into the nest and sat on the floor, watching Thor’s chest rise and fall. They relied heavily on Thor because he was the most of mobile of the team, crossing great distances even faster than Tony. SHIELD was slowly stabilizing, but the world was still in uproar almost a year after they dropped a databomb on the planet that threatened to tear it apart. It was all they could do to keep up most days, and Thor took his self-appointed job as Earth’s protector to heart.

“I think he feels responsible,” Bruce said quietly. “Because of Loki.”

Steve nodded. He understood that kind of guilt. No one he knew had ever opened up a portal that spilled out hostile aliens and introduced the planet to a whole new realm of warfare, but he could still relate. They sat in companionable silence while they waited for the rest of the team. Sam was long gone, but Natasha wandered in ten minutes later, towing Clint behind her by his belt buckle. Phil trailed after them with a decidedly pleased look on his face. The three of them were relaxed and damp from yet another shower. Steve would normally feel guilty about the water usage, but after their day, it was the least they deserved.

Steve watched out of the corner of his eye as Natasha and Clint sized up the current arrangement. Bruce was rarely down in the nest until at least half way through the movie, and Thor was usually impatiently demanding they move faster. He had a love of television that rivaled Clint on his best couch potato day, and he didn’t usually like to be delayed on the rare evening they were all under the same roof. Phil came up behind them with a pair of long necked beers in one hand, and a can of Fresca in the other. He handed off the beers, took one look at the nest, and calmly stepped down. Without so much as a glance for permission, he nudged Bruce’s legs apart with one bare foot and sat between his legs.

Bruce blinked at Phil’s back uncertainly for several seconds while the room held a collective breath. Releasing a shaky breath of his own, Bruce set his tablet aside and tentatively opened his arms. Phil smiled at him over one shoulder and snagged a pillow. He held it behind his head and leaned back. Once Phil was comfortably settled, Bruce lowered his arms to rest on the cushions around him. If he didn’t look precisely at ease, he didn’t look like he was ready to panic either, so Steve counted it as progress. Clint hopped over the back of the couch and rolled into the nest, somehow not so much as sloshing his beer on the way down, and Natasha climbed in more daintily behind him. Clint came up to rest on Bruce’s left side, and Natasha lay across Phil’s lap. Phil, eyes partially closed, ran his fingers through her damp hair.

Steve took in the endearing scene until Tony finally joined them with bags of Chinese food in hand, the suit safely stored away and undergoing intensive decontamination in the lab.

“Did we decide on a movie?”

“Thor wanted to watch _Avatar_ again,” Natasha said without opening her eyes.

“The horribly murdered Nickelodeon one, or the blue people?” Tony asked suspiciously, pausing with one foot in the nest and one foot on the tile.

“Blue people.”

“Oh, good, a long one.” The Chinese food went onto a giant tray in the middle of the nest, and Steve watched fondly as Tony handed it out rather than make anyone get up – or risk Bruce taking off as soon as he was free. Steve finally crawled into the nest himself, resting with his back to Thor’s mountain of cushions and his head on the sleeping Aesir’s stomach. Natasha captured his foot between her thighs about twenty minutes in, and Tony curled up under his arm as soon as he’d eaten his fill of broccoli beef. Steve drifted off sometime in the first hour, and no one moved until late in the morning.

~*~

_Nine days later…_

“We’re seriously going with the net plan?” Sam asked uncertainly from the air. He wasn’t as good with hovering as Tony, and instead maintained a constant circling bob. He fired the thrusters to get up a few yards and slowly drifted back down, maneuvering jets on his arms and ankles keeping him mostly in the same five foot area.

“I think we’ve tried every other plan,” Phil responded. Steve could tell he was looking through a list of their other plans, and Phil confirmed it by concluding, “All of them except the _play episodes of Teen Wolf until he begs for mercy_ plan.”

“That is a good plan,” Tony argued stubbornly. “Anyone who has ever been forced by their terrifying ex-girlfriend and current CEO to watch even one episode of that show would agree with me that is our largest untapped source of interrogation and peace negation tools. We should be mining that show for the potential.”

“If you can figure out how to make him hold still long enough to watch a television show,” Steve said dryly over the comms, “We’ll work on that plan.”

“Challenge accepted,” Tony quipped in reply. “Heads up, he’s coming for you, Cap.”

A bolt of lightning lanced down from the sky, melting a crater into the snow and sending up a hiss of steam. Bucky, on the run from a hail of arrows, changed course with feline agility to avoid the lightning strike, anticipated the next strike and smoothly dodged around it. His metal arm caught an arc of electricity and threw off sparks.

 _Not too close,_ Steve cautioned.

 _Apologies,_ Thor replied. The next bolt sent Bucky into a roll and Steve readied himself to provide enough of an obstacle for Sam and Tony to lock him down with Tony’s newly designed StarkSmartNets. It was a feat of silly engineering undertaken after seventy-two hours of not sleeping that Steve had originally only lifted an eyebrow to, but they had proven useful in the field. Tony said that he would be more smug about them, but that he couldn’t actually remember inventing them. Not that he wasn’t smug about them at all, he just confined his gloating to knowing smirks, and one memorable howl of, _In your slimy metal face! My blackout engineering could beat your best game any day of the week! Suck on that, you overgrown Roomba!_

“Hi, Bucky,” Steve greeted as Bucky skidded to a halt thirty yards from him. Bucky glared, and Steve sighed. Sometimes Bucky would have flashes of lucidity, and once he’d even given Steve an expression of baffled pain and said, “I’m so sorry I let you die.” Steve had his arms around his friend for a dozen heartbeats, and then Bucky’s programing took over once more and he smashed a metal fist into Steve’s ribs. The memory of Bucky’s wrecked expression hurt more than the three broken ribs he paid for the embrace.

“We’re not here to hurt you. We want to help you,” Steve tried, even though Bucky’s face held no hint of recognition. “Please come with us, Buck.”

Bucky glanced sideways at the tree line where Natasha was crouched under cover with a Night-Night rifle given in an exchange for Tony’s StarkSmartNets with SHIELD. Clint would be caught up to her in moments to provide cover from the other side of the snow filled riverbed. Bruce waited in the wings with Phil, not sure if he could bring out Hulk without risking doing serious damage when Bucky inevitably fought back.

“Please,” Steve tried one more time, hoping against hope that he could get Bucky to come along peacefully and they wouldn’t have to shoot him down with a net like a rabid animal.

For a brief second, Bucky seemed to consider it, and then his eyes clouded over and he charged at Steve with his metal arm cocked back for a blow.

“Taking the shot,” Sam warned.

Steve dove out of the way and Sam fired the net. Hundreds of tiny bots exploded from a ball no larger than an orange, adjusting automatically to compensate for Bucky’s evasive path. Bucky rolled at the last second, threw his metal arm up and caught one edge of the net. The bots fastened tight to the metal, sensing instantly that it wasn’t flesh and adhering to it like miniature bulldogs. Bucky glanced at Steve with an expression of pure malice, swung his arm in a great arc, and flung the net into the trees. The bots fixed themselves to the trunks and Bucky used it as an anchor to swing out of the way of Tony’s net, which sunk harmlessly into the ground. Bucky tore the net off and threw it contemptuously to the side. The net sparked pitifully in the snow and Bucky’s silver arm kept a few of the tenacious little bots along with more than one seared smudge.

“He’s getting away again!” Clint shouted, firing off arrows interspersed with the blue flashes of the Night-Night rifle.

All at once, Steve was so very tired of it. Putting on his best command voice, he drew in a deep breath and barked out, “STOP RIGHT THERE, SOLDIER!”

And, for a wonder, Bucky froze.

An arrow _thunked_ into the tree to Bucky’s left, and he didn’t even flinch. Steve was so stunned that it worked that he just stared at Bucky’s back for three long breaths.

“Uh, Cap?” Sam suggested, landing next to him, “Maybe we should deploy nets?” He lifted the net gun in question.

“No, wait.” Steve swallowed hard and stepped forward. Bucky didn’t move, so he took another step, and another, until he was less than a dozen yards away. “Turn around,” he ordered. Bucky turned to face him. He stared somewhere to the left of Steve’s ear, gaze flat and expression completely blank.

Steve crept closer and reached out with a hand, but put it down again in case it broke whatever spell his friend was under. “Bucky?”

No reaction. Bucky remained passive and unmoving.

“Come with me,” Steve said, making it an order instead of a request. His heart thundered in his ribcage, waiting, and soared with relief when Bucky obligingly stepped forward. Steve walked backwards toward the quinjet until he was sure that Bucky was going to follow, and then turned around. The back of his neck prickled in mingled concern and nervousness. He felt his hand tightening on his shield and forced himself to relax. He reminded himself that Bucky was his friend, and his body’s insistence on him being an opponent would just have to take a back seat.

 _Careful, Steve, please,_ Bruce begged as they came into sight. The rest of the team fell in behind Bucky, weapons pointed down, but clearly waiting for Bucky to make a run at Steve’s exposed back. Completely unconcerned of the rest of the team, Bucky followed Steve all the way to the jet without a word of complaint or a twitch of threat.

“I can _not_ believe that worked,” Sam breathed, landing at the edge of the loading ramp. “Almost a year of chasing this guy, and all we had to do was go a little dominant on him?”

A moment of silence was interrupted by Clint casually asking, “How much do you know about going dominant on someone?”

“Welcome aboard, Mr. Barnes,” Phil greeted from inside the jet, completely overriding whatever sputtering reply Sam might have made.

Steve walked backwards into the jet and Bucky followed, ignoring Phil. He glanced around the jet, his gazing assessing rather than curious. His eyes landed on the seat that had been rigged with him in mind. It sat against one bulkhead, heavy restraints built in on both arms, larger on the left, cuffs that would lock over ankles and thighs, and a harness that would hold him securely to the bulkhead. Bucky tipped his head, looked over at Steve, and then sat down and strapped himself into the restraints while they watched, dumbfounded. He opened his mouth and waited.

“Bucky? What are you doing?” Steve kept his voice gentle and edged closer to his friend.

Bucky, mouth still open, regarded Steve with curiosity. Several moments of silence passed, and he finally closed his mouth. He tipped his head to one side, glanced down at the restraints and asked, “Do you wish to wipe me and start over?”

“That sounds horrifying,” Tony muttered. He had the helmet off and was staring at Bucky in a mixture of pity and seething anger that Steve knew was not directed at Bucky, but at the sick minds in Hydra who turned Steve’s best friend into this breathing automaton.

“No, Bucky. We’re not going to wipe you and start over.” Steve looked uncertainly at his teammates and friends. He took in their controlled expressions, their easy faith in him and asked Bucky, “Are you a danger to my team right now?”

 _We may not be able to trust him to be objective with that question,_ Phil warned.

Bucky examined them with no sign of recognition. He pulled his hands out of the restraints, looked up at Steve. “Would you like me to kill them?”

“No!” Steve barked, making Bucky flinch back. “No,” he repeated more gently. “Bucky, these people are your friends.” He recognized, with a sick feeling in his stomach, that Bucky had plugged him into the role of master and commander. He hated it, but he ordered, “You are not to harm them under any circumstances. Do you understand?”

Bucky blinked. He looked at the gathered people as if memorizing their faces. “Mission parameters: do not harm individuals currently present. Is this correct?”

Steve winced, but he nodded. “Yes, that is correct.” Steve looked up at his team. He thought he would feel so much better when they finally had Bucky in hand. On good nights, he dreamed that Bucky snapped out of his haze, smiled at him, called him by name, and came willingly back to the tower. On bad nights, they brought him back kicking and shrieking and he murdered Steve’s team – his family, his colony- in their sleep. Looking at Bucky’s blank expression, he thought he would almost feel better if they’d had to haul him into the jet battered and unconscious. This mindless obedience was heart rending.

 _We just have to get him home,_ Tony said, putting a careful hand on his shoulder. _Once we get him home, we can figure out how to break this conditioning he’s under._

Steve nodded. “Everyone strap in. Clint, get us home please.”

Bucky stayed in the restraints, but no one moved to tie him down.


	4. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! 
> 
> Warning in this one for some bondage.
> 
> For teasers on upcoming stories, updates, etc., come visit me at my tumblr: http://lightshadowverisimilitude.tumblr.com/

Bucky sat calmly in a chair at the conference room table and watched them while the team discussed him. Steve hated his blank gaze, slack expression, like a blinking statue.

“You know the best chance we have at breaking this conditioning is bringing him into the colony!” Tony argued again. Clint and Natasha nodded, Phil and Bruce looked less convinced, and Thor was on Bucky-guarding duty. He’d said nothing one way or the other, his eyebrows furrowed as he took in Bucky’s battered body. Whatever had been going on for the last year, Bucky hadn’t been living in the lap of luxury. He was thin, covered in bruises and scars, and his eyes were lined with deep circles.

“Tony-“

“It worked for Bruce!”

“I was not fighting off nearly a century of negative programing,” Bruce pointed out. He looked worriedly over to Bucky, who sat passively through a medical exam and accepted a high calorie protein bar, but hadn’t said a word since they got him back to the tower.

“Yes, but you had a damaged connection. Bucky has a damaged connection. This would work.”

“Tony, he is not in any condition to give consent right now,” Steve ground out. He was trying hard to hold onto his temper, but he felt the rage and frustration and fear and sorrow writhing in his gut like snakes, just waiting to lash out.

“It’s not like we would be doing this for the joy of thing, believe me, mindless sex doll- not appealing. It’s to help him get his mind back, Steve. Hell, I’ll kneel right now and suck him off with an audience if you’re worried that-“

Heat boiled over and Steve slammed both fists into the conference room table. “ _Tony!_ ”

The room went silent. Steve didn’t yell often. Even in combat situations, his voice was exactly as loud as he needed to be heard, but always controlled. He felt angry heat flush over his neck and cheeks. Steve sucked in a breath and tried to control the wild emotions he knew were filtering into his voice.

“Tony, I love you, but I will _not_ stand by and let choice be taken from him _again_. He has been repeatedly, viciously raped for almost a century, has had choice taken away from him in every single aspect of his life. I will not turn into one more face in a sea of faces who have abused him. And I won’t see any of you added to that list either.”

Tony ducked his head in an unprecedented show of guilt. Steve knew he felt guilt and responsibility keenly, all the time. But Tony Stark didn’t let anyone, not even his colony, see him when he felt vulnerable. He sat down roughly and turned his face away from Steve, jaw tight and eyes haunted.

“Tony…”

“You’re right. Of course.” He cleared his throat into the deadly uncomfortable silence. “Alright, new plan. At least one of us stays with him at all times. If he’s ever lucid enough to give consent, ask, if he agrees, bring him in. Full disclosure. If anyone has an issue bringing him in, don’t volunteer for Bucky time.” His eyes flickered briefly to Steve. “Sound okay?”

Steve thumped into his chair and looked over at his friend. Bucky stared sightlessly into the middle distance, not even registering that they were talking about him. Steve knew that Bucky’s best hope for a full, speedy recovery was the colony bond that they could pass onto him through sexual intercourse. But even if it would help him, the idea of ordering Bucky to lay down for one of them made him instantly dizzy with sick horror. It wouldn’t even be _one of them_ , it would be Steve, because Steve couldn’t ask that of anyone else. He knew that Bucky would always hate him for it, even if he thanked Steve for giving him his mind back, he would hate him too.

“Yeah,” Steve said finally. He shuddered and covered his eyes with one hand, blocking out Bucky’s tired, dead gaze. “Informed consent only. I want him to spell out exactly what would be happening. All of it.”

A round of uneasy nods went around the table, and silence followed. “Maybe we should get our guest some food, a shower, and a bed?” Phil suggested finally, breaking into the heavy weight filling the room like rising water.

Steve winced. “Of course. Bucky?” One of Bucky’s eyebrows twitched in acknowledgement and he turned his gaze to Steve, waiting patiently for orders. “Are you hungry?”

Bucky took a second to answer, as if he had to consider it. He nodded, a single, wary motion. Steve wondered how many times his various controllers taunted him with food, asked if he was hungry and then refused to give him anything until he finished a task, or just for spite. Steve swallowed back the bile climbing up his throat. “I’m going to show you the kitchen. From now on, whenever you’re hungry you get yourself whatever you want.” Bucky didn’t show any comprehension, so Steve firmed his jaw and asked, “Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Steve winced. It shouldn’t have hit him like a blow to the gut to hear Bucky call him ‘sir.’ Half his team called him ‘sir’ whenever he put on the uniform or the _official voice_ , as Tony called it. Bucky certainly could have called him worse things – he shuddered at the idea that Bucky might call him ‘master’- but it somehow felt like a betrayal for _Bucky_ to address him as if… as if Steve had control over his every action. Which, at the moment, he did. The realization made him feel like he was floating away from his own body and he had to pinch his inner thigh hard to ground himself. He didn’t have time to be breaking down, not when they finally had Bucky and he needed Steve to be strong.

Steve stood and held out a hand. Bucky blinked at him for several baffled seconds, and then offered his metal arm, wrist up. Steve only meant the gesture as _follow me_ , but he took Bucky’s cool metallic wrist in one hand, turned it over and put Bucky’s hand in his palm. He tugged gently and Bucky rose to his feet.

~*~

For a wonder, Steve found Tony in the bedroom. It wasn’t even midnight, so he’d expected to find his lover down in the workshop, tinkering. When he found the workshop empty but for the bots, he was surprised to be directed to the bedroom by Jarvis, who sounded surprised himself. Tony sat in bed with his back propped against the headboard, a holographic tablet braced against a pillow on his lap and a stylus in his mouth while he typed.

Tony’s eyes flickered up to him and then quickly away. “He settled in?”

A spark of guilt went off in Steve’s gut. He hadn’t heard a word from Tony since he led Bucky out of the meeting. “Yes. He’s in Thor’s room tonight. Just… Just in case.” Between everyone at the tower, Thor and Bruce were probably the best suited to handle Bucky if his programing reset, but Steve wasn’t going to do that to Bruce, and Thor was perfectly happy to be on Bucky sitting duty. Bucky more-or-less alive in their home gave him some hope for Loki. Steve could have done it himself, but he wanted Bucky to have time away from him so he could relax without waiting for Steve’s orders.

Steve ran a hand across the back of his neck. “Tony…”

Tony glanced up at him again and then once more away, expression tight. “You don’t have to ask for permission to sleep in your own bed, Steve. It’s not like we’re married.”

Steve gaped at him, hand sliding from the back of his neck. “What? Tony, I’m not here to tell you I’m sleeping apart. I’m not angry.” Steve crossed the room quickly, realizing that his mistake was in hovering at the door. Iron Man might be indestructible, and Anthony Stark might have an ego that could crush whole city blocks, but Tony was unexpectedly vulnerable underneath, all too willing to believe that someone who was supposed to love him would walk away from him the first time he became inconvenient. Steve couldn’t blame him when he had the empirical evidence to back that assumption up – his parents, his shithead of a guardian, even Pepper.

Steve slid into the bed and took the tablet out of Tony’s hands.

Tony blinked at his empty hands for a second before saying, “Was right in the middle of a chemical equation. But that’s okay.” He took the stylus out of his mouth and turned to Steve with that same pinched look, prepared to take a blow with a smile and pretend to walk away unscathed. “What can I do for you, Steve?”

“Tony, I am sorry. What I said at the meeting today… was true. But I didn’t say it very well. I am just so… so _angry_ at what they did to him, and I can’t seem to control myself where he’s concerned.” Steve reached out and took Tony’s hand in his. “I am sorry that I took it out on you. And I’m sorry in advance, because I’ll probably do it again without meaning to.”

Tony stared down at their fingers laced together. “You said you love me,” he whispered brokenly.

It was like getting socked in the gut all over again. “Of course I love you. How could you not know that?”

Frowning, Tony answered, “You’ve never said it before.”

Steve’s instant reaction was to blurt out _neither have you_. Steve never said it because they were in each other heads. He knew Tony loved him, and he thought Tony realized he felt the same. He tamped down on that reaction and instead leaned forward to kiss him. “I guess I’ll have to remedy that,” he murmured against Tony’s lips, and was surprised when Tony actually winced under him. He pulled away. “Or not…?”

“Sorry, I’m pretty fucked up. I guess you know that by now.” Tony smiled tiredly. “Most of the time ‘I love you’ is followed by ‘but I can’t stand you, so goodbye,’ so you’ll have to forgive me for not really _loving_ the words.”

“ _Jesus,_ Tony-“

“And that’s enough sharing time for tonight. I’m happy you came to bed.” He set one hand on Steve’s jaw and pulled him into an insistent kiss, throwing the pillow away so he could drag Steve onto his lap. Steve moved with him, unsure of how to fix the odd pressure crushing them together, how to soothe Tony’s frantic aggression. Outside of the suit, he could overpower Tony without effort, but he let Tony push and shove him until he was naked, spread out over the bed at an angle. Tony kept their mouths too close together for speech, and Steve didn’t fight that either. Sometimes there were simpler ways to communicate, so he arched into Tony’s hands and let his body speak on his tongue’s behalf.

Tony cautiously pulled away from his mouth when they were both naked with the blankets kicked off the end of the bed. Steve kept his mouth closed and locked his eyes on Tony’s, compliant and waiting. Tony opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it again. His eyes were wide and flickered between Steve’s eyes to his lips and back. He backed slowly off the bed, keeping his gaze on Steve as if waiting for Steve to make a break for it. Steve let him go, but his heartbeat picked up as Tony approached the chest under the window. Tony grabbed it with one hand and dragged it over, oiled wheels whispering on the tile.

Steve opened his mouth for the gag and lifted his head so Tony secure it. Tony checked that it wasn’t tangled in his hair, ran his fingers around the chord to make sure it sat flush against his checks, tucked it over his ears. Steve made no sound against the gag, stayed still and relaxed, but he kept his eyes locked on Tony’s every move. The ropes came out next, not black, but in colors ranging from deep blue to pale gold, with every shade of blue and green between. Steve let Tony move him, even when it would be easier to help. The ropes were metal armature covered in silicone and wrapped in silk. It wasn’t quite like being held by the colony, but it was the closest they could get with the colony galaxies away.

Tony wrapped a thick rope around his chest, attached it to a harness, and that to the ring concealed in the canopy. Steve gasped around the gag and closed his eyes as his chest left the mattress. Tony pushed the ring on its track to center Steve on the bed. Loops under his knees, coils around his waist, and a sling that attached to the rigging at shoulders, hips, and neck kept him secure and comfortable. With one heave, Tony hauled him completely off the bed. He swayed in the sling, soothed by the familiarity of it, made warm by Tony’s eyes on him. Tony could have made the whole thing automatic, but he said there were some things he liked to do with his bare hands. Steve agreed and let his breath out on a moan at Tony’s hands on his skin, the vibrations of his touch through the cords. Tony made adjustments to bring him into a comfortable recline, his knees tucked up and open, arms hanging down outside of the sling. Thin cords secured his wrists a few inches apart, just close enough that he could feel the pressure on his shoulders, the tug of stretched muscles across his chest, the barely-there restriction on his breathing.

“I remember you like this,” Tony said softly, his first words in the careful hour of arranging Steve’s body where he wanted it. He ran his fingers around the cords, short nails sending little electric shocks chasing over Steve’s skin. Tony examined each rope, trailed his lips over exposed skin, and hummed softly, tunelessly, as he did. It was almost exactly perfect, nearly the trill of the colony as it held them in the nest.

“I made a few…I made some improvements,” Tony told him, flickering his eyes to meet Steve’s. He kept a hand on him at all times as he walked around the bed to the bottom left bed post. He reached under the decorative carving where the post met the footboard.

Steve’s eyes flew wide and he jerked in the sling, whimpering. All around him, the cords lit up in pulsing golden lights. They hummed against skin, such a faint tremor that he may not have felt it if not for his serum-enhanced sensitivity. Tony kept a hand on his ankle and let Steve thrash in the sling as the lights spread slowly outward and upward. The entire canopy lit up with the gentle glow and it was so beautiful and so welcome that Steve’s eyes prickled with tears, welled up with warm salt water that he didn’t try to stop spilling over his cheeks.

Tony kissed the tears off his cheeks, pressed his lips to the corner of Steve’s eyes, licked around the gag, and finally secured the last piece the rigging. Three slender coils of rope around his throat, just at the border of too-tight.

Before the colony, Steve would have never guessed that he would like being tied up, wouldn’t have even let a lover try it if asked. But it wasn’t really being tied up – it wasn’t about restraint, it was security, feeling safe enough to let go of the tight control he kept on himself all the time. He let his weight rest against the cords, trusting them to cradle him, trusting Tony to keep him safe.

Tony stepped onto the bed between his spread legs, hands running up his shins, petting over the cords, and _God,_ if they didn’t glow brighter at the touch. Steve felt them grow warmer against his skin as the light intensified, the pitch of the hum climbing gradually. Tony leaned over and briefly rest his weight on Steve’s chest, increasing the pressure of the sling on his back. The pressure was just right and reminded Steve of the colony at his back, a firm tentacle supporting him. Steve bit down into the gag to stifle the noises he wanted to make. Tony met his eyes and smiled, his lips curving up into something not exactly like mischief, not exactly like joy, but exactly like _love_ , and it made Steve’s heart kick hard against his ribcage.

“I am going to take you like this,” Tony warned him, partially to taunt him and partially to give him the opportunity to say no. It wasn’t like the gag could actually keep him from speaking if he wanted to, but he said nothing, staying silent against the gag and not reaching out to that warm weight at the back of his head that was his colony.

Steve let his head fall back and relaxed his weight into the cords. He felt Tony’s warm hands on his inner thighs, callouses sending ripples of pleasure up his spine as they brushed against sensitive skin. Tony’s mouth roused him from the hazy fog Steve fell into whenever Tony strapped him into the cords. He craned his neck to look down at Tony. Tony had his eyes closed as he moved his mouth slowly over Steve’s hardness. Steve pressed against the rigging to move his hips, but he had precious little leverage and Tony put a stop to that in quick order. Without looking up, he reached one hand up to tangle in the cords. The heavy rope around Steve’s chest tightened just to the point of being uncomfortable and released. Steve obediently fell still and relaxed into the pulling pleasure of Tony’s tongue on him.

Gentle fingers, slick and warm, stroked against Steve’s entrance and it was all he could do to keep from pushing against them. He trembled in the cords with the force needed to keep himself still. Responding to the motion, the cords pulsed brighter, the entire canopy lighting up gold. Steve whimpered around the gag, drawing air in through the holes cut into the leather wrapped tube. It wasn’t enough and his lungs seized on it before he remembered to breathe through his nose. Tony soothed him with soft noises, running his hands down Steve’s sides and setting off lights in the cords where he touched them.

Tony waited until Steve relaxed again and met his eyes once more. Keeping their gazes locked, he pushed a finger slowly past the tight ring of muscle protecting Steve’s body. Steve reminded himself to relax and was rewarded with Tony pushing through the last resistance and finding his prostate immediately. Steve jerked into the electric touch, bit down on the gag, and forced the trembling muscles in his legs and back to let go. Tony kissed his knee and smiled in approval, leaning forward again to set his mouth to Steve’s straining erection.

By the time Tony finally pushed into him, Steve was out of his mind with the pleasure of it. His entire world was made up of golden lights, pressure on his chest, the maddening drive of Tony’s body merging with his. He tipped his head back and arched his spine into a bow, pressing up into the pull of the cords. His vision darkened and a combination of reduced blood flow and oxygen made him feel, for a glorious moment, like he was floating. Tony pulled him in a smooth, accelerating rhythm, the loops sliding soundlessly on the tracks, Steve swaying in the air, free for those minutes from all responsibility and all control.

When he came, it was the world collapsing in on him, passing through him, leaving him drifting in a void. Tony joined him in spiraling ecstasy, and Steve stayed conscious, but only barely. Tony relaxed slowly against him, and Steve, feeling boneless and bloodless and free of his body, was only too happy to take his weight. They stayed that way while they drifted back to Earth, the stars dancing around Steve’s eyes slowly resolving into the pulsing lights of the canopy above him.

 _Happy lights?_ Tony asked finally.

Steve laughed for the pleasure of feeling the warmth in his chest, even if the gag muffled the sound. _Happy, happy lights._

Tony roused himself after a minute and went about the task of freeing Steve from the rigging. He took his time and released each cord in opposite order. The coils came off of Steve’s throat, the cords released his wrists and warmth spread over his shoulders and arms as blood rushed back in. The sling came off and Steve was left briefly swaying by his chest and knees, but Tony lowered him gently back to the bed before it got uncomfortable. Steve stayed quiet and still until the lights were turned off, the cords packed back into the chest and put away. Tony left him in the gag though, and Steve resisted the urge to take it off himself. Not saying a word, Tony got one arm under Steve’s knees and the other behind his shoulders. Steve was always impressed when Tony picked him up – he wasn’t exactly light, and taller than Tony by several inches- and he never admitted it, but he enjoyed being carried.

Tony took him into the bathroom and set him down at the shower door. The gag still didn’t come off, so Steve let himself be led into the shower. He sat compliantly on the bench while Tony started a few of the showerheads, and collected the soap and a loofa. Tony washed him with such intense concentration that Steve started to worry, but still said nothing.

Steve stood still while Tony dried him with the same attention and then carried him back to the bed. He was worried that Tony was going to expect him to sleep in the gag, but Tony finally reached over and unhooked the tiny clasp. Steve pried his jaw open enough for the gag to be removed and worked it slowly side-to-side to ease the soreness out. He looked up at Tony and waited for some indication of what was happening between them.

Eyes troubled, Tony slid down the bed until he could rest his ear over Steve’s heart. “I really am broken,” he said finally with the air of an admission.

Steve said nothing for a minute. He reached up and stroked a hand over Tony’s hair. “Being broken makes us human,” he managed finally.

It must have been the right thing to say, because Tony shuddered and the tension left his shoulders. The arc reactor pushed into Steve’s side, hard edges right against his ribs, but he didn’t mind – the surface of the reactor was slightly warmer than Tony’s skin and Steve loved the physical reminder that Tony was alive and there with him.

“I love you,” Steve told him. He tightened his hold when Tony tried to roll away. “And I’m going to keep saying that until you realize it doesn’t mean I’m about to leave you. Besides,” Steve continued. “You’re my colony. I couldn’t leave you if I tried.”

Steve shifted so they lay chest-to-chest and wrapped Tony up in his arms. Tony struggled briefly, but gave up after a moment and tucked his face against Steve’s neck. “Why do you think I dove into an alien ball of tentacles anyway?” he asked finally, lips barely moving against Steve’s chest.

“For the logic?”

“For you, stupid… And the logic.”

~*~

Maybe the evil and the hapless of the world had gotten the memo that Captain America was not in the mood to be dragged away from home. That might have had something to do with the gang of thieves that Steve left tied naked to a billboard off the freeway. To be fair, he didn’t make them naked – their tech backfired and ate their clothing. But he heard that it took several hours to get them down and he only felt the tiniest twinge of guilt as Tony howled with laughter over the news. Either way, the Avengers had an entire week without a single request from SHIELD or a call from one of their allies asking for help. Steve knew it wouldn’t last, but he took advantage of a nice dinner with Tony, hours trying to get Bucky to talk to him, even an afternoon curled up on the window seat with a stick of charcoal and his sketchpad. Bucky was at least curious about the charcoal portrait and endearingly baffled by the dark smear on his fingers when he touched the page.

Steve woke well after the sun rose. It was a unique enough occurrence that he took the time to enjoy it. The bed was empty, but he wasn’t surprised by that. Most nights he could hardly keep Tony in bed long enough to make a mess out of it; sleeping past sunrise was out of the question unless he was injured. Steve got up only after his bladder made it clear that lounging in bed any longer was also out of the question.

Tony did not let cleaning crews onto the Avenger’s floors for security reasons. They cleaned up after themselves with the help of a small army of robotic assistants. Steve didn’t mind cleaning; there was something calming about the simplicity of it. Of course, with Tony, even the simple things had minds of their own. Steve cleaned up in the bathroom, and set Tony’s little Scrubbing Bots loose on the shower. He smiled as he watched the hoard of robots no bigger than his palm climbing the walls like they were marching to war. He scrubbed the toilet and the counter himself, but a flip of a switch flooded the room with ultraviolet light to catch what the ecofriendly cleansers didn’t. He heard the bots chittering their way back to their charging pads as he made the bed, neat enough to pass inspection.

His phone chirped from the bedside table and he glared at it uselessly for a moment before picking it up. Expecting an SOS or a list of atrocities, he was surprised to instead find a picture of a rose. “ _Wake up, lazy_ ,” Tony’s text read with a winking face attached. Steve chuckled and smoothed out a last wrinkle on the bedspread, feeling warm from his cheeks to his toes as he typed back, “ _Love you_.”

Steve barely made it a single step before the phone buzzed in his palm. “ _Doesn’t count in a text. Ur such a woman_.”

“ _Oops. I think I just sent that to Natasha. Sorry, you know I can’t deal with technology._ ” Steve grinned, but just because he didn’t like being a liar he forwarded the text to Natasha.

 _You’re a dick, Stark,_ Natasha answered into their shared headspace.

 _You actually sent it?? Traitor._ Tony sounded suitably terrified and Steve laughed aloud as he crossed the room to the door.

 _This newfangled technology of yours is just so far beyond me,_ Steve respond in mock seriousness. _Old men like me have difficulty with it._

_You are such a dirty, filthy liar. Incidentally, he’s also a lot of dirty, filthy other things. Come have breakfast with me, Nat. I have pictures._

Steve froze in the hallway, eyes going wide. _Don’t you dare!_

 _On my way,_ Natasha responded promptly.

 _Oooh, me too!_ Clint added.

Steve made it into the common area to find the rest of the team already sitting around the kitchen. Bucky sat next to Thor at the bar, Phil was at the table with Bruce, and heaven help him, but Natasha, Clint, and Tony had their heads bent together with Tony’s phone in between them. Steve stopped in the doorway. Running over to steal the phone would only make them that much more insistent about seeing the pictures. The only problem was that Steve had no idea what pictures Tony would have. He was reasonably sure that he would remember if Tony had been snapping pictures while they were in bed, but Tony was the master of doing things without Steve noticing.

Taking a slow breath, he finally decided to ignore them and walked right past them to sit next to Bucky. He picked up the paper and skipped the headlines in favor of the sports’ section. He would get to the headlines eventually, but they invariably depressed him so he liked to start elsewhere.

“Eaten yet?” Steve asked Bucky. They tried to avoid looking Bucky straight in the eye as it made him uncomfortable at best, and violent on one memorable occasion.

“No, sir,” Bucky answered dutifully. He didn’t always answer questions from everyone else, but he always answered Steve. Steve mostly hated it, except that Bucky’s blind obedience to Steve’s orders was the only thing keeping him safe and in one place. Steve hadn’t pressed yet for any details on Bucky’s former life with his controllers or his year on the run.

“What do you want?” Steve asked, glancing over at Bucky. Bucky’s brow furrowed as he thought, his expression cycling slowly from thoughtful, to confused, to frustrated.

“Hey, Bucky.”

Interrupted, Bucky’s expression cleared and he looked up at Tony, eyes still settled somewhere in the middle distance.

“You want scrambled eggs with bacon, or waffles and chicken?”

Steve opened his mouth to tell Tony to butt out of it; he wanted Bucky to make his own decisions. But Tony’s insights occasionally blew him out of the water. Bucky’s expression went from blank to something quickly approaching grateful.

“Waffles,” he said after only a second of consideration.

Leaving his phone with Clint and Natasha, who were giving Steve surreptitious looks over the counter, Tony crossed to the fridge and pulled out a package of raw chicken, the carton of eggs, and a gallon of milk. “Anyone else while I’m offering?” Tony asked, pulling packages out of the pantry.

“You cook?” Clint asked, mouth hanging open.

“Not for disbelieving ingrates, I don’t,” Tony answered easily. He moved around the kitchen with surprising ease. “Bucky, c’mere. I could use a metal hand.”

Steve watched in disbelief as Bucky slid out of the chair and followed Tony uncertainly around the kitchen. Tony handed him dishes, directed him to set the table, and when he came back, set him to pouring batter into the waffle maker.

“When it beeps, just flip it over,” Tony explained. The waffle maker chirruped and Tony twisted the handle and popped the lid, revealing a perfectly golden waffle. “Got it?”

Bucky didn’t say anything, but he took the ladle from Tony and scooped in the waffle mix without spilling a drop. Tony patted him casually on the back and Bucky was so fixed on his task that he didn’t even flinch. “You are so much more useful than Dum-E. How sensitive is that metal prosthesis?”

Bucky glanced at him sideways, but didn’t answer.

“Right, we’ll test that later.”

 _Tony… that was amazing,_ Steve said softly into their headspace, overawed by the sight of Bucky performing even such a simple task under his own steam.

_Yeah, well… the conundrum of choice. Too much choice makes it hard to make a decision. A or B is an easy one._

“Clint, unless you have an antibacterial wipe attached to your ass, get it off my counter. Shoo.” He flapped a hand at Clint until he jumped down. He thrust a container of wipes into Clint’s arms and made another shoo’ing gesture that Clint interpreted as ‘take these wipes and do not clean the counter with them.’

“See, this is why I’ve never cooked for you people,” Tony complained, but he turned back to the stove and stared laying floured chicken into hot oil.

~*~

After breakfast, Tony reached across the table and hooked a finger around Bucky’s mental forefinger. Startled, Bucky curled his finger in, capturing Tony’s finger. When Tony hissed in brief pain, Bucky instantly let him go, jerking his hand back and darting fearful eyes over to Steve.

“Hey, my fault, didn’t mean to startle you. How much control do you have on that hand? For finer things?” Tony wiggled his fingers in illustration.

Bucky narrowed his eyes at Tony in consideration and then looked down at his hand. He moved the metal digits slowly.

“Why don’t we…” Tony leaned back dangerously in his chair, flailing for the sideboard. He managed to snag a pen out of the cup there and let his chair drop back to all four legs. “Bucky, catch.” He tossed the pen, underhanded, across the table.

With his fantastic reflexes, Bucky’s right hand was a blur as he reached up and snatched the pen out of the air. He frowned down at it in his hand, slowly moving the pen as if trying to remember how to hold it.

“Great,” Tony praised. “Now let’s try that with the other hand. Toss it back.” He held up both of his hands, waiting.

Steve watched the exchange anxiously, not sure if he should step in. Bucky could very well decide to throw the pen back like a projectile and put it through Tony’s throat. For some reason, Steve remembered Clint playing catch with the colony. He smiled as he cautioned, “Gently.”

Bucky glanced over at him and then lobbed the pen back over the table.

Tony caught it easily in one hand and held it up again. “Okay, now with the left hand. Catch.” He tossed it again.

With the same lightning speed, Bucky reached out with his metal left hand and caught the pen. Ink exploded everywhere and he jumped back from the table as if scalded, staring down at his closed fist with wide eyes. He looked hastily to Steve, and, in a single movement that would haunt Steve’s nightmares for the rest of his life, he dropped straight to his knees and arched backwards to expose his throat and chest.

Steve was out of his chair in an instant. Bucky didn’t try to defend himself, to assure Steve that it was only an accident. He didn’t even flinch as Steve caught him with both hands.

“Bucky, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong, please stand up.” Steve urged him to his feet and he went, shoulders hunched and looking miserable for all that his expression was once again completely neutral. “God, Bucky, please don’t ever do that again. You don’t have to kneel to anyone.” He wrapped his friend up in his arms and held him tightly. Bucky didn’t say a word, just shook in Steve’s grasp.

 _I don’t think he knows how to handle you touching him, Steve,_ Bruce said very gently. Steve took a step back to see that Bucky was bone white, eyes painfully wide. He held his ink covered hand out from Steve’s body as if afraid to get ink on Steve’s white shirt. It felt like fire in his throat, but Steve stepped away and dropped his hands. Tony saved him again by stepping between them and clapping a hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

“No problem, big guy. I guessed you were going to break it. Come along, we’re going to spend some quality time with my fabrication units, and get you some real use out of that hand. How’s that sound?” Bucky glanced over his shoulder as Tony led him away. Steve mustered himself to nod encouragingly, but he only stayed on his feet until the elevator door dinged. He collapsed into Bucky’s abandoned chair and buried his face in his hands.

 _Sorry, Steve,_ Tony apologized. _And… the pictures were just from the rollercoaster. Swear._

_It’s fine. Thank you for… for doing what you’re doing._

He couldn’t be happier that Bucky was developing a friendship of sorts, but it hit him hard to realize that Bucky might forever consider him a controller, and never see him as a friend again.


	5. Chapter Four

Steve was startled out of a sound sleep more than a week later by Jarvis’ emergency alarm. Tony came up flailing, hands, feet, and elbows going in all directions. The first time Tony was startled awake and came out of sleep fist first, Steve tried to restrain him until he woke up. The sound Tony made was so heartbreakingly terrified that Steve never tried again. He just rolled out of the bed and kept clear of the swinging limbs.

“Sorry to disturb you, sirs,” Jarvis intoned. “There is an emergency call from SHIELD on the line. I have already assembled the team. Mr. Wilson is on his way and will meet you on site.”

Tony, scraping his hands down his face, said, “I’m awake.” He drew in several deep breaths, one hand covering the arc reactor and the other running through his hair. He rolled out of bed even as Steve started for the closet. “What’s the emergency?” Tony called, pulling an undersuit out of the bedside table and stripping out of his boxers.

“Hydra has the new SHIELD headquarters under siege, sir. SHIELD believes they may be looking for Mr. Barnes.”

Steve froze with his uniform pulled up to his waist. True to Tony’s word, he’d invented a new textile that stretched enough to go on easily and quickly while still holding all the armor he needed it to, and it stopped bullets better than Kevlar. Steve had one hand already wormed into the arm of the uniform, but the announcement stopped him cold.

 _We can’t take him,_ Tony said unnecessarily. _He follows orders like a champ, but-_

 _I know,_ Steve interrupted. He ran a hand through his hair. _Phil, I’m handing over operations to you. Tony, you handle tactical in the air and coordinate with Natasha on the ground. And be nice while you’re dealing with our allies, please._

 _Where are you going to be?_ Natasha asked.

 _Here. Tony’s right – if Hydra is looking for Bucky, we can’t take him with us. And we can’t leave him alone. One of us has to stay behind and since I’m the only who can override his programing…_ Steve angrily yanked the uniform up and secured the latches that kept it closed at the throat.

 _This could be a ruse to get us all out of the tower, leaving you and Bucky practically defenseless._ Bruce sounded uncertain.

 _There’s a reason that no bad guy has ever come at us at home,_ Tony cut in. _It’s not like they don’t know where we live. The automatic defenses I have on this place could stop a Chitauri invasion and that is not a hyperbole._

Steve caught Tony’s arm as he passed the closet for the door. He pressed a fierce kiss to Tony’s mouth, pulled back and said, “I love you. Be careful.”

A few weeks was not long enough to condition the automatic wince out of Tony’s body, but he nodded and leaned in for another kiss. “Keep the bed warm for me!” he called over his shoulder as he ran for the hangar. He wasn’t even out of the hallway before the first of the Mark 47 started arriving up the stairs and Steve watched as he armored himself.

He met Bucky on the staircase leading to the roof and stopped him from following after Thor with a brief hand on his right arm. Bucky froze under his grip, and Steve let him go. “We’re guarding the fort tonight, Bucky. Come on.” He gestured the man back down the stairs. Bucky looked longingly after Thor’s retreating back.

“Be well, my friend. We will return shortly,” Thor reassured him at the top of the stairs.

Bucky reluctantly turned away and followed Steve down. The moment of reluctance was such a tiny thing, but even in the midst of his anxiety over his team facing Hydra without him, Steve’s heart still swelled to see it. When Bucky was first brought home four months before, he would hardly eat without being given permission. He moved around the top floors more freely now, trailing after Thor in the mornings, working out with Natasha and Clint, sitting in Tony’s lab while they tinkered with his arm. Steve even caught him watching “Sherlock” with Sam one afternoon. They’d been called out as a whole team only three times since Bucky returned to the tower with them. Bucky went along for each, though by and large he stayed in the quinjet to avoid attracting attention from anyone who might be after him.

A hundred explanations went through Steve’s head as they took the stairs back to the common area ranging from _it’s just a routine mission and they don’t need us_ to _There might be trouble here at home_. With an angry word for himself, Steve finally settled for the truth.

“There are people looking for you, Bucky.” He made sure to have a clear view of Bucky’s face before he said anything. Bucky went very still. His eyes glassed over and his throat moved convulsively as he swallowed. “And we don’t want to give them a chance to get their hands on you. So you and I are going to stay here to keep you safe.”

Bucky nodded slowly. He looked back towards the stairs. “I can fight.”

“I know, Bucky. But I can’t…” Stevestruggled to keep himself from putting an arm around his friend. “I couldn’t handle it if they got you again.”

Bucky considered this with his eyebrows furrowed and then nodded. He didn’t say anything else and followed Steve calmly through the living room. Steve wanted badly to pull up the comms and get a video feed of his team running. Not only would that potentially upset Bucky, who obviously didn’t like being left at home, but it would just make Steve even more anxious about something he couldn’t impact.

 _Let me know if you need us,_ Steve ordered.

_Will do, Cap. Just sit back and enjoy the night off._

~*~

Steve asked Jarvis to play the cartoons that he and Bucky grew up with. Neither of them had a television set of their own when they were young, but they snuck into the local theatre on a regular basis to watch the shows. Bucky tipped his head while he watched, his hair falling to obscure one eye. He seemed alternately confused and fascinated by them. Steve just hoped that meant he was remembering, but he tried not to push Bucky with the _do you remember_ questions – he would answer them, but it distressed him every time he had to say no.

The emergency alarm went off for the second time three hours into the battle for SHIELD headquarters. Steve was paying such close attention to the comms that he nearly jumped out of his skin at the first blare of the alarm.

“My apologies again, sir,” Jarvis said, “But it appears that there is a portal opening on the roof.”

“What-” Steve started, but Tony interrupted him over comms with a snarl of pure indignation.

“Who the _hell_ put a sign on my door that says ‘all portals welcome,’ huh? Jarvis, pull up the video feed, I want to see what we’re dealing with.” He was quiet for a second and Steve listened as Phil calmly gave out orders to Natasha and Clint in the lull. They were just mopping up the last of the Hydra attack on the ground, though this new event didn’t exactly bode well with his team on the other side of the city. Steve wanted to get up and race for the door, but running out without knowing what he was dealing with would be the height of stupidity. He made himself sit still and not call Bucky’s attention, though he knew that Bucky’s hearing was sensitive enough to pick up both ends of the conversation anyway.

Tony let out a sudden loud whoop. “ _HELL YES!_ Steve, get your beautiful ass to the roof! Oh, happy freaking lights. It’s the colony!”

Steve was so dumbfounded that for a second he couldn’t move. The comms and their headspace filled with excited chatter, punctuated by the occasional curse while his team engaged in skirmishes.

“Jarvis!” Tony called over the general commotion. “Shut down auto attack procedures, incoming is a friendly, and get the hangar doors open. Last thing we need is every interested party in the world seeing our alien friend fall out of the sky.”

That finally jarred Steve out of his shock. “Bucky, come with me.”

“Trouble?” Bucky asked, standing readily to follow. He checked the knives secured in his clothing. Steve tried not to count them and failed. He saw twenty-two blades before he turned away and forcefully made himself _not_ ask where he’d gotten them. He had a feeling that two assassins in particular might have something to do with it.

“Not trouble,” Steve answered as he shouldered the doors open to the stairwell. “A friend is coming to visit.” He stopped Bucky before he opened the door to the roof. “My friend is…” There was still no easy way to say it. “A bunch of tentacles.”

To his credit, though perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising, Bucky didn’t even lift an eyebrow.

“It will probably grab me. You must not hurt it. It is a friend. And I think,” Steve added, almost afraid to hope, “I think it might be able to help you. So it’s probably going to grab you too, as long as you’re okay with that?” He was babbling, and he understood, intellectually, that Bucky wouldn’t say no to him whether he was okay with it or not. Steve struggled again with the consent issue. “Just… stand back until I tell you it’s okay to come closer.”

Bucky nodded and Steve pushed the door open to the roof just in time to see the golden portal reach its full size and an exploratory tentacle reach out. Steve rushed forward and happily took the end in hand. It lit up blinding gold and wrapped immediately around his waist. The weight was both familiar and welcome and he ran his hands over the soft skin.

 _Steve!_ The colony greeted in one booming voice. The single subcolony coming through the portal was still attached to the main colony on the home planet, and Steve was nearly overwhelmed with the enormity of it. While connected to the colony, he had two confusing sets of sensory feedback – the rooftop, the chilly New York air, the hint of moisture in the wind, but also the lush planet the colony called home. For that moment, he knew the position of every member of the colony, the weather on three continents, the temperature of the water beneath four major oceans, twelve seas, and more than three hundred thousand lakes and rivers. He felt the sun on his limbs, the moon high above him, the sway of the tide. It should have been all-consuming, too much information, but he knew it the same way he knew that his left boot was just a little tighter than his right, the way he recognized the movements of his own hands. It was awe inspiring.

The colony tumbled through the portal and the portal closed with a shower of golden sparks. As soon as the mass of tentacles landed on the gravel roof, it picked Steve up and drew him into the nest. This unit, he knew at the instant of connection, was fifty-three percent larger than the original representative of the colony that landed in Central Park more than a year before. It was comprised of some but not all of the same members of the original colony, but the communal knowledge made that a moot point. It may not have been made up of the same individuals, but this colony was still the same colony.

The colony went through a brief but thorough examination, pulling his limbs out and checking him for damage. The first time he was picked up by the colony was panic and misunderstanding. Now Steve relaxed entirely into the strong grip and let it manipulate him as it wanted. Even with Tony’s clever substitute, he’d sorely missed being held by the colony.

 _Steve_ , the colony purred again, wrapping him up tightly in a dozen glowing limbs, thin tentacles petting over his face and peeling him out of his uniform.

 _Hangar, Steve,_ Tony reminded him, mental voice bouncing with excitement. _Hulk just took out the last of the artillery and we are inbound for home. Say hi for us!_

 _Tony,_ the colony interrupted, warm and equally excited. _Clint, Thor, Natasha, Phil. Bruuuuuce._

Smiling so broadly his face hurt, Steve finally directly the colony into the hangar. It considered the large building, but didn’t immediately start moving.

 _Shiny,_ it declared, curious as ever. _Steve colony?_ The colony asked, considering Bucky, who stood exactly where Steve left him.

_Yes, but please don’t grab him yet. His name is Bucky._

_Bucky,_ the colony mused. It moved obligingly into the hangar and out of sight of anyone who might be pointing a telescopic lens at the top of Stark Tower. Steve just hoped that the Hydra attack distracted any potential observers and no one noticed the glowing golden portal in the first place.

 _Please move me to the outside of the colony. I need to talk to Bucky,_ Steve requested, though he would have preferred to stay in the nest. The glowing ball, the panda, and the stuffed Hello Kitty doll that the colony took home after the last visit were cuddled up with him. He was touched to see them. The colony reluctantly moved him until he could get his head and shoulders outside. He didn’t fight for more, comfortable where he was and sure that Bucky would not be put at ease to see him naked in the grip of the tentacles anyway.

“Bucky!” he called. “Come here, please!”

Steve heard the crunch of Bucky’s boots on the gravel, and then the man himself appeared at the hangar doors. He eyed the colony warily, gaze quickly assessing Steve’s position for danger or threat.

“Bucky, this is the colony. Friendly, remember?”

Bucky nodded briefly, but his eyes were narrowed on the tentacle stroking happily through Steve’s hair.

“I know it’s strange. But it _is_ friendly. And it wants to meet you, whenever you’re ready.”

Bucky was saved from answering by the quinjet coming into the hangar a little too fast and setting down a little too hard. The loading ramp lowered and his team poured out with Thor right at the head of the pack. The Aesir launched into the air from the base of the loading ramp and the colony rose up happily to catch him. The colony trembled in excitement and reached out to grab the rest of the team directly from the plane.

“ _Whoa_ , tell your… friend to back off!” Sam called frantically from the inside of the jet.

 _Don’t take Sam,_ Steve said quickly. The colony was intensely curious about anything new, and the shiny piece of technology on Sam’s back definitely counted as new; that it was attached to a new human only sweetened the deal. The colony waved a tentacle in front of him while he leaned back against the seat.

 _Sam_ , the colony repeated dubiously. _Sam is Steve colony?_

 _Yes, Sam is Steve colony. But he doesn’t want to be… connected,_ Steve tried to explain. This was a concept the colony had trouble with when handling humans. Between being told not to pick up Bucky and not to pick up Sam, it was very confused. The only human the colony ever met that it didn’t like was Fury, and that was because Steve and Tony didn’t trust him. Despite the time Steve spent trying to explain, it couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to be so isolated.

“It won’t touch you, it just wants to say hello, you big baby,” Clint snorted.

“Hi,” Sam said weakly.

The colony reluctantly retreated from Sam, who quickly sidled out of the jet. “I’m just going to go…somewhere not here, and keep an ear open for anyone who would like to advantage of nearly all the Avengers tangled up in some kind of alien love nest,” Sam explained, beating a hasty retreat to the elevator.

 _Sam is not happy lights,_ the colony guessed mournfully.

 _Forget about Sam, baby, he’s just a spoilsport. We missed you,_ Clint said, getting the colony’s attention.

Steve let himself be drawn back into the nest where he came upon what would have once been a scene from a nightmare – his entire team strung up and vulnerable. With the colony, it only made him feel secure. Grinning like a maniac, Thor was pulled spread eagle against the curve of the dome the colony made into the nest. He was still mostly clothed as the colony tried to figure out the catches on his armor. It didn’t have trouble with zippers and buttons, but the leather ties it found at once interesting and irksome. Tony lounged back on the ‘floor’ with the Hello Kitty doll pressed into his stomach, Bruce next to him with the giant panda in his lap. Clint was happily naked and rubbing his nose against the slender tip of a curious blue tentacle hovering in front of his face. Phil and Natasha, however, were being thoroughly examined. They were brought in by Clint after the colony left, and the colony was not given the opportunity to explore either of them. Steve smiled while it pulled them out of their clothing, and didn’t even have to remind the colony to be gentle with their throats and let them breathe.

 _Natasha,_ the colony said with a distinct note of confusion. It lit up bright blue with curiosity, and pulsed a deep green in concern. _Damaged?_

Steve flushed bright red and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or shout in horror as the colony explored her breasts and the warm wetness between her legs. Natasha was the first female the colony had encountered and it wasn’t sure what to do with her.

 _I am not damaged,_ Natasha explained, doing a much better job of holding her composure than Steve would have given the unabashed methods the colony employed in exploration. _I am female._ She opened her mouth compliantly for the tentacle that slid across her lips. Next to her, Phil did the same, his eyes sliding closed and face flushed a delicate pink.

 _Female is… not individual?_ The colony asked. She jerked in the hold of the tentacles and a fine shudder passed through her body.

 _Our species requires a male and a female to procreate,_ Bruce explained when it became apparent that Natasha wasn’t going to answer, and the soft noises she made against the gag of the tentacle increased in volume. Steve squirmed in mild discomfort and some embarrassment – it wasn’t like he’d never seen her naked (he’d showered with her multiple times, felt her strong body beneath his fingers), and it wasn’t like he hadn’t heard her with Clint or Phil… or Clint _and_ Phil, but watching her with the colony proved strangely voyeuristic, while the strengthened connection almost made it feel like watching a tape of himself masturbating. He averted his eyes and found Clint watching him with a playful smirk.

The colony considered this new concept with great care, petting its human colony members in an absent-minded way. Steve leaned into the caress and decided to stay out of the conversation. He had people more scientifically-minded who could share biology and logic with the colony.

 _Steve colony procreates?_ It asked finally.

Natasha’s eyes opened into amused slits while Steve and Bruce declared vehement negatives and Tony laughed. So much for staying out of the conversation.

_Don’t worry. I’m tied anyway. Couldn’t even if I was crazy enough to want any of your devil spawn._

_Hey, any child of an Avenger would be somewhere near demi-god on the scale. You should be so lucky,_ Tony shot back teasingly. He didn’t even open his eyes, happily snuggling deeper into the coils holding him securely against Bruce’s side.

 _Natasha is… damaged?_ It flipped her upside down and twisted her into an alluring position that would turn any gymnast green with envy. She didn’t mind, shifting her weight easily to compensate and tilting her neck to keep from gagging on the tentacle still happily examining her tongue.

 _Intentionally damaged,_ she explained as the colony searched her for injuries.

Obviously upset, the colony declared, _Will repair._

 _Don’t, please,_ Natasha said immediately.

 _But…damaged,_ it argued.

Natasha gasped and struggled against the strong hold for the first time, writhing in a controlled motion in an effort to escape.

 _Bad flash,_ Steve intervened firmly. _You’re hurting her._

The colony stopped and withdrew immediately. It was very sensitive to both pain and pleasure, and careful not to harm its fragile humans. It turned Natasha right-side up again and, in seeming apology, passed her from coil to coil until she was situated in Phil’s lap. Phil was freed just long enough to put his arms around her, and then a strong coil wrapped them both up once more.

 _Steve colony does not procreate,_ it decided with an air of wistfulness.

 _Not that I’m not ecstatic to see you,_ Tony cut in gently to change the subject. Steve was grateful as that was not something he wanted to become a thing they talked about. _But why the visit?_

Reacting with knee-jerk speed, the colony dragged them into a tight bundle and squeezed them firmly together, winding tentacles around them in great loops. _Bad flash,_ it muttered, adjusting them minutely as a mother bird checking her chicks in the nest. _Danger comes for Steve colony. Colony keeps Steve colony warm._

~*~

If it was difficult to get the colony to let them loose before, it was doubly so in the light of the alien threat headed for Earth.

 _We need to warn people, and it’s difficult to do that from in here,_ Steve tried to reason. They were still in the center of the nest, approximately back-to-back, though slowly being shifted even closer until they were more than half on top of each other in some cases. Steve didn’t mind the closeness, but all he could hear repeating in his head was _Danger comes for Steve colony_. Sam was already on the line with Fury and Xavier with the vague report, and pointedly, thankfully, hadn’t said, “I told you so,” even once.

 _Colony keeps Steve warm,_ the colony responded stubbornly.

 _You can’t just hold us in here until whatever threat this is has passed,_ Steve argued.

 _Colony keeps Steve warm._ Apparently, it thought it could.

Steve narrowed his eyes. The rest of the team was quiet, looking to him as best they could for instructions. Finally, Steve firmed his jaw, pretended that he was talking to Bucky during those few brief spells where his programing went haywire, and ordered, _Release us, now._

The colony hesitated, tentacles shifting and twitching. Steve waited it out, but didn’t relax until a shudder like a sigh ran through the colony. The team was slowly pulled apart and passed through to the outside. The colony redressed them with agile efficiency, except for Thor, who only got his pants back. The rest of his armor flew out to land somewhere near the elevator. The colony kept a firm tentacle wound around Steve’s waist, but reluctantly let the rest go. It folded into an unhappy ball, pulsing rusty orange.

“Tony, can we get the doors off the stairwell? I think our friend would be more comfortable and less exposed in the living room.”

Tony, not arguing, stepped back into the armor. The team waited, quiet and tense, for more information.

 _Shiny,_ the colony praised faintly. Tony paused long enough for the colony to run caressing limbs over his armor. The colony was still sulking and not as excited about the new technology as it would have been otherwise. When Tony moved away, the colony let him go but followed him closely.

 _Please tell me more about this danger,_ Steve requested while Tony commandeered Bucky’s help to get the heavy security doors off their hinges.

 _Bad flash, bad flash. Big bad flash._ It dragged Steve back against the main body as it once did when it shared images of home and the conflict that left the colony stranded in Central Park. He closed his eyes and let the images wash over him. The colony was ultimately a peaceful being and conflict upset it, so his previous experience was mostly a jumble of confusing images as the colony tried to come to terms with being cut off from the larger consciousness. Now, it was careful to be very clear.

Steve cussed. He didn’t do it often, and the silence that followed over the comms let him know that he had everyone’s undivided attention. He cursed again just for the release.

“What is it, Captain?” Phil asked with easy authority. He stood next to the dismantled door with his arms crossed over his chest. He’d eschewed the suits to distance himself from SHIELD, but he still looked intimidating in the well-fitting slacks and black tees. Steve had never quite nailed down how such an unassuming man could have so much presence, but he was happy that Phil was on his side.

Steve drew in a breath. “It’s the Chitauri.” He waited for the line to clear, and added, “Thor, they’ve got Loki with him.”

Thor’s shock was evident. “It is true I have not returned to Asgard for some time, but Loki was to be kept in confinement in the most secure prison ever built.” Steve didn’t reply to the unvoiced request for confirmation and Thor sighed, “My brother, what have you done…?”

“He’s not coming as a conqueror this time,” Steve amended after reviewing the images again. He twisted until he could see his friend, hoping to head off what was sure to be an explosive reaction. “They’ve got him in chains, Thor.”

Steve could readily see how his ancestors might have mistaken Thor for a god. Thor’s expression went from sorrowful to enraged in the blink of an eye. Lightning crackled in his hair and around his eyelashes, arcs jumping from finger to finger, hair lifting away from his shoulders with the energy that surrounded him. He looked terrifying. “They would _dare_ ,” he said dangerously, “Lay chains on _my_ brother?”

“I’m sorry, Thor,” Steve said instead of answering again.

 _Thor is not happy lights,_ the colony announced with some alarm. It curled a tentacle toward the seething Aesir, brushing gently across his arm. A spike of electricity arced up from Thor’s fingertips and reached out to the nearest outlet. The tentacle jerked back in surprise at the shock, the electricity carrying through the entire colony and spreading over Steve’s skin. It was not painful, and the colony made an odd sound that took Steve only a second to define as laughter.

 _Forgive me, my friends,_ Thor announced, stepping away from the colony when it reached out to him again. _I must take a brief trip home to ascertain how my brother came to be in the hands of these creatures. How long until they reach Earth?_

_They’re coming by ship this time. The colony is sending reinforcements – they’ll be here about the same time. Maybe… three weeks? Four, possibly, if I’m translating the time correctly._

_Then I shall return in two days’ time, and no later, to aid in preparations._

_We’ll be ready,_ Phil said confidently.

Tony’s voice was fierce as he added, _We took them on when they had the element of surprise and kicked their scaly asses. With three weeks to prepare, they won’t even make it out of their motherships._

Steve didn’t say that he thought the force sent through the portal was likely meant to be a strike team taking advantage of their element of surprise, and for the colony to be in such anxious knots it had to be a big force coming their way. They all knew that, but Tony’s words felt good, so he let them stand.

 _The doors have been removed. Right this way, if you please?_ Phil made a gesture to the colony, and the colony extended one slender tentacle to wrap around his wrist before it started moving. Not confined to anything like a solid shape, it flowed easily into the stairwell and smoothly navigated the tight turn on the landing. Steve was barely jostled on the way down.

He’d predicted many times that the colony would love their living room, and was proven correct. All thoughts of the Chitauri fled as the colony slid into the textured room with barely contained excitement. There weren’t quite as many pillows as the original haul brought in by SHILED for the colony’s first visit, but Steve doubted that would last long. He wouldn’t be surprised if Tony already had orders out for truckfuls of pillows and blankets. The colony set to exploring its temporary quarters, once again sorting pillows and cushions in some fashion that made sense only to the colony.

“Cap, I’ve got Director Fury, the World Security Council, Professor Xavier, and a whole bunch of people I can’t even see through all the shiny brass on their chests demanding to talk to you. Don’t suppose you want to take this in the conference room?”

 _I’ll stay with the colony if you want to get cleaned up,_ Bruce offered. _Probably not a good idea for me to be there anyway. Bucky can stay here with me._

Steve was as reluctant to be let go as the colony was to release him, but he nodded. The colony insisted on holding him until Bruce was settled comfortably in the folds of a dozen tentacles. It finally set Steve down. The broad limb encircling his waist retreated slowly, caressing his skin as it pulled away. He’d only been back in the colony’s hold less than an hour, but he still felt a sinking sense of loss when he was left on his own.

“With the exception of Bruce,” Steve said into the comms, despite most of his team being in the room. It was mostly for Sam’s benefit. “Get cleaned up and to the conference room in ten or less.” He turned to face Bucky, who stood quietly against the wall, eyes tracking the movements of the tentacles around him. They didn’t touch him, and he didn’t seem worried about them. “Stay here with Bruce.”

Bucky nodded shortly and Steve hurried for the bedroom. He didn’t want to fight the colony for the rest of his uniform and probably needed to brush his hair anyway. Tony joined him after a minute, stepping out of the suit at the bedroom door. He caught Steve by his hips and pulled him into a tight hug. Steve tipped his head back to rest against Tony’s, gently grasping Tony’s wrists and massaging the tender skin.

“Not quite the reunion we were hoping for,” Tony murmured against Steve’s naked back. The whisper of his lips felt good, even better than usual in the midst of the turmoil surrounding them. Steve relaxed back for a precious second and let the weight pull on him. He hadn’t even been out of the ice for four years and it was non-stop crisis after crisis.

“I want a vacation,” Steve muttered.

“Baby, we vanquish these alien asscanoes – again, I might add- and we will go absolutely anywhere you want, leave our phones and comms and everything here. We’ll tell the world to behave, no mad parties while we’re out of the house, and Hulk’s in charge until we get back. See who wants to back talk _him_.”

“Anywhere?” Steve clarified, trying hard not to ask where Tony came up with _asscanoes_. He suspected Clint had something to do with it and did not want to know exactly what.

“I will buy you an island. Seriously. A whole chain of them. With monkeys and papayas, or something.”

“Oh, monkeys and papayas?” Steve held in the laugh and tried to keep his face serious, even though Tony couldn’t see his expression.

Tony’s fingers trailed up his ribs and across his stomach, dancing over his abs with light taps like he was playing a musical instrument. “Would you prefer an island of snakes and lizards? Maybe…. Really big snakes and lizards?”

He asked with such genuine interest that Steve knew he wasn’t joking. “I don’t think an island will be necessary,” Steve said, just in case Tony’s mind was already taking off on the island tangent and planning for the dinosaurs he would create to keep there, because it was Tony, and Steve couldn’t imagine him having an island without wanting to turn it into Jurassic Park. With anyone else, he wouldn’t worry, but Tony had one of those scary intellects that would easily trick Bruce into figuring out how to clone a nest of velociraptors. He turned around in Tony’s arms and leaned down to set their foreheads together. “But I do want a vacation.”

“Done. Just name the place, and we’ll do that.”

~*~

The gathered assembly didn’t fit on one screen and Tony had to improvise four more for everyone to be readily visible.

“Thank you for your patience,” Steve said by way of greeting once Tony stepped back into his armor and moved to a seat. He swiveled to face the screen, and Steve almost told him that he didn’t have to be in the suit for the meeting, but realized at the last minute that Tony was probably multitasking. He could use Iron Man’s blank face as a way of being ‘there’ to present a united team front, while also doing valuable research and setting up plans. Normally Steve would berate him for it, but they had much less time than he would like, and Tony doing what Tony did best seemed like a better use of that time.

“Captain Rogers, I have been led to understand that you have an alien entity currently in your custody who warned you about an incoming threat from the Chitauri. Is this correct?” A stiff black woman with steel white hair and sharp hazel eyes asked as soon as the murmuring quieted down. She had a heavy French accent, but it didn’t mar her words at all.

“The colony is not in our _custody_. It is a friend and an ally, and traveled a great distance at some risk to itself to give us this warning. The colony is also sending a force to intercept the Chitauri invasion and assist us in our defense.” Steve hardened his face into the same look he gave Hydra officers, the same expression that made Fury back down from his vague idea of holding the colony captive the last time.

“Rogers, I demand that you produce this alien entity immediately,” a general in a green Army uniform barked. Steve glared at the implication that because the general was army, Steve would fold and follow orders. “You are to turn the creature over to military custody for questioning.”

“We’re jumping right to this, really?” Tony broke in, apparently paying more attention than Steve thought. “Our friend shows up on, I will remind you, _MY_ doorstep, offering us help for a threat we didn’t even know existed, and we’re going to jump straight to the capture and interrogate part of this conversation?” Loud arguments broke out immediately on the screens.

 _Who the hell do these people think they are?_ Clint asked angrily.

 _People with money and power, and they think it means that the entire universe bows to their whims,_ Phil answered, unruffled, but his voice tinted with sadness and disapproval. The three former SHIELD agents had never discussed their feelings toward SHIELD’s myriad betrayals, but Steve knew it sat heavy on them. Maybe especially on Phil, who had been a big part of the system that failed so horribly to do what it was meant for – not even failed, but actually succeeded in doing everything it claimed to stand against.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Phil broke in after listening to the world’s top powers bicker like five year olds over who got the last blue Otterpop. He smiled his unassuming smile, picked someone on the screen, and just stared at them. The general he’d chosen grew quickly uncomfortable, mouth closing into a tight line. He shifted nervously in his seat.

“Shut the hell up, all you,” the general snapped finally. He darted his eyes back to Phil’s unwavering smile and grunted, unhappy and offended.

Phil looked to Steve, giving him back the floor. Steve inclined his head gratefully and once again thanked his lucky stars that Phil was on his side. He firmly believed that Phil Coulson could take over the world and have it organized into neat administrative blocks inside a week if he felt inclined.

 _Giant. Freaking. Balls,_ Tony praised.

“Thank you,” Steve said, trying not to show a reaction when Clint casually warned, _He’s mine, Stark, you already have one._

_What? I can’t admire a pair of –_

_-He’s not_ just _yours,_ Natasha added pointedly.

 _Do we really need to discuss the size of Phil’s balls while Steve is trying to talk to the world leaders?_ Bruce asked, but he sounded amused and relaxed. Steve felt a spike of envy thinking about Bruce curled up in the nest while they were all stuck dealing with these overgrown children.

_Thank you, Bruce._

“We have faced this threat before,” Steve cut in, calling his team’s attention back to the purpose the meeting. “And we were victorious, with no forewarning, no planning.”

“People still died, Captain,” a woman in her fifties reminded him. She had blond hair that was obviously dyed to hide the grays, and a face lined with the evidence of a life in politics. “Not to mention the millions of dollars of property damage, and the massive cleanup efforts to remove alien corpses and technology from the city.”

“And all of that would have been so much easier if your nuke had hit the city as planed?” Tony asked in an undertone that was still perfectly audible. “Oh, sorry, did I have my mic on?”

_Tony…_

_I know, I know. I’ll take my external mic off and keep my comments to Jarvis only._

_Record them though,_ Clint begged, _I want to listen later._

_Done._

Steve gritted his teeth and gave his team a dark look. They handled serious situations by treating them like they were light situations, and sometimes handled a light situation (like ordering pizza), as if it were on par with disarming nuclear missiles. He couldn’t be angry with them because he encouraged it most of the time, but most of the time they weren’t sitting around with the world’s top leaders on the line.

“Lives were lost,” he said finally into the stunned silence that followed Tony’s comment. “And property was damaged. And there was a massive cleanup effort. I know, because I was on the ground with a shield in my hand, taking on the threat. I watched one of my best friends fly a nuclear missile into the jaws of certain death to save millions of lives. I put on my gloves and helped rescue survivors, and move corpses, and collect technology.” Steve stopped and took a breath, realizing that he’d dropped his voice and leaned forward over the table. He sat back up and took a sip of water. “So don’t talk to me about New York. What we need to talk about is a Chitauri fleet several times the size of what we dealt with then, and our _allies_ who are traveling from a very long way away to help us.”

“This is precisely why you need to turn the creature over to military custody,” the general argued.

“I won’t. First of all, the colony is my personal friend, not a _creature_. I would no sooner hand it over than you let you take any member of my team. Secondly, as I once explained to Director Fury and I don’t doubt you’ve been briefed on, the colony is a force to be reckoned with all on its own, and believe me when I say that we want it on our side.”

“And we’re just supposed to trust you to coordinate with an alien race?”

“Yes,” Steve answered succinctly. He highly doubted that Fury shared the Avenger’s unique connection the colony, and he knew that information hadn’t been part of the info dump that was instrumental in bringing about SHIELD’s collapse. Fury would hold that information for a much more crucial moment, Steve knew.

“And you don’t think we should be bothered that this alien race is sending an army to our doorstep? How do we know that the Chitauri are involved at all? This could all be an elaborate ruse to get us preparing for an invasion that isn’t going to happen, all the while letting the real enemy right in the door and turning our backs to it!”

It was right on the tip of Steve’s tongue to spill the whole secret of their connection in the instant flash of anger the World Security Councilmember’s accusation brought up. Phil and Fury must have seen it at the same time, because Phil reached under the table without even a micro change in his expression and squeezed Steve’s knee in warning.

“We have had this alien on our home turf before,” Fury said before Steve could even get a breath in. “It was perfectly polite, and went home as soon as it could. It caused no damage, no loss of life, and cooperated the whole time. We can hardly say the same for the Chitauri.”

The discussion devolved into sniping and arguing at that point, Councilmembers and military brass pointing fingers at their screens and snarling in so many languages that if Steve closed his eyes, he might have thought himself in a bazaar somewhere at a major cultural crossroads instead of in a conference room.

“I propose,” Steve said sharply over the rising din. He waited a second for the generals and counselors to bring their attention back. “That we set aside our differences for the next month and handle this. We have four weeks at the outside before we’ve got a major problem. Now, we can sit here and accuse each other of everything under the sun and more, and we can fight about whose responsibility this is, and we can preemptively start cutting up spoils before we have even started the battle,” Steve said through gritted teeth. He spoke five languages fluently and was disgusted by the fights over technology already starting between nations. “Or, we can pretend that we are not squabbling children and actually get something productive done. Up to you, but if you continue this behavior, I am going to disconnect the call and you can go on fighting while my team and I make plans to save the world. Again.”

They hated him for calling them on their bullshit, Steve could see it in their eyes. Even the military representatives were politicians. The only gazes that weren’t molten with hostility was Fury’s single eye, and Professor Xavier’s kind eyes. Steve had never spoken with the mutant before, but he imagined that he was looking at the future of Phil Coulson. Sans mutant telepathy and substitute STD-Telepathy, as Tony called it.

“I agree, Captain,” Xavier said into the simmering silence that followed, the first words he’d uttered since the meeting started nearly an hour before. Steve nodded to him gratefully and turned the discussion to sharing resources.

It was a predictably long meeting.


	6. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

After the first meeting, Tony sicced Pepper on the world leaders. Despite her complaints that she was busy enough preparing the company to handle the storm of the upcoming invasion, she took to the conference room like a queen and marched out of it looking like a cat glutted on stolen cream. Steve was so grateful for her intervention that he wrapped her in a tight hug and lifted her out of her three-inch heels. She blinked up at him uncertainly and smiled as she put her shoes back on.

“Thanks, Pep,” Tony told her, strolling out of the living room with a tablet in one hand and a wide pale green tentacle wrapped around his waist. “Stealing my boyfriend?” he asked with a blank face that would have worried Steve if it were anyone other than Tony, and if he hadn’t said the word _boyfriend_. They’d never defined their relationship that way, and Steve found himself warmed by the idea of being someone’s boyfriend.

“I doubt I could steal him if I tied him up and dragged him out of the tower,” Pepper responded, resettling her suit jacket and giving Tony an awkward hug with her lower body held as far away from the tentacle as she could manage. Pepper was a fan of the colony only in theory. Seeing it curled around the living room floor had not done kind things for her complexion.

“I don’t think you’d even get to the dragging part,” Tony mused. “Super soldier and all. He’d probably let you do the tying up though, just because he’s polite like that.”

“ _Tony_!”

Pepper laughed at Steve’s scandalized expression and reached up to pat him consolingly on the chest. “All yours,” she said and then gave Tony another awkward hug accompanied by a peck on the cheek before she hurried to the elevator. “Rhodey is coming by today, please be nice and do _not_ give him this telepathy-STD. Or let anyone… or any _thing_ else do it,” she called over her shoulder.

 _Pepper is Steve colony?_ The colony asked, trailing half a dozen tentacles after her as she beat a hasty retreat.

 _Yes,_ Steve answered, even though it would be more accurate to say that she was Tony colony. But he didn’t want to confuse the colony, so he went with brief.

 _Pepper doesn’t want connection?_ It guessed with the equivalent of a put-upon sigh.

 _No, buddy, she doesn’t,_ Tony answered for him. _But hey, logic!_ He stepped up to Steve for a brief kiss and then moved back into the living room where he and Bruce were ensconced in rings of tentacles with holographic displays hanging in the air above them.

 _Logic,_ the colony agreed happily.

~*~

Thor returned, as promised, two days after he called the Bifrost Bridge down in the middle of a New York parking lot that was now being treated like a holy relic for the mark it left. On his way back in from a meeting with the Joint Chiefs, Steve caught him in the private foyer. He mused briefly on how weird his life had turned out – from the skinny kid from Brooklyn, to a man who had meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and told _them_ what to do.

If possible, Thor looked even more furious than he had when he left. Thor was generally so happy and good natured that Steve usually forgot he was the same person the Norse mythology described. Steve wasn’t exactly a student of Norse mythology, but he’d sat in enough classes to know that the God of Thunder was not the happy go lucky sort.

“My brother was never in his cell,” Thor snarled. “The man I took back was a changeling. The Chitauri have had my brother in custody now for over two years. I will make them regret that.” His hands curled slowly into fists and electricity snapped in the air.

Steve didn’t put his hand on Thor’s shoulder, but he nodded in agreement. He knew he would do anything in his power to save Thor’s brother, and he was sure the team felt the same after the effort they’d put into saving Bucky. Whether Loki would appreciate being saved was another matter entirely.

“The All-Father is sending a contingent of warriors to aid Earth in the fight against the Chitauri, and to liberate my brother. Prisoner though we may have thought him, Loki is still a prince of Asgard. This will not be tolerated.”

Thor was getting himself more worked up the longer he spoke. Steve found himself wishing he had his shield, or at least was wearing something less flammable. Before the Aesir could get himself into a real rage, they heard the clatter of footsteps on the marble tiles.

“Thor?”

Thor’s expression cleared so fast that Steve could almost believe he’d imagined the dark rage. “Lady Jane!” The electricity dispersed and he held out his arms to catch her. “Do you not have important work that will keep you occupied until the spring?” he asked. Steve watched his expression morph into pure wonder as he looked down on her, one giant finger trailing down her face. She was a petite woman and looked even more fragile in his hands.

“Like I would miss meeting the colony? Plus, I hear we’re about to get invaded, so Tony invited me out, and told Darcy we could eat popcorn and watch the show from the balcony.” She smiled cheekily and took his hand in both of hers as Darcy came around the corner. Happy trailed behind her with a suitcase in either hand.

Darcy skipped up to Thor and threw her arms around his neck. “Hey, Big Blond. How’s home?”

Steve winced, expecting Thor to go back into Thunder God mode, but he only smiled and pulled Darcy into his side. He kissed the top of her head and shifted Jane to his other side. Giving Steve a nod, he urged the two women toward the elevator. “Home was beautiful as always, and bleak without the sight of my ladies,” he said sincerely, making them laugh. Steve tagged along, as much because he wanted to see the girls’ reaction to the colony for the first time as he was already on his way up.

The elevator doors closed and Darcy finally gave Steve a sheepish smile and said, “Hey, Steve. Sorry.”

Jane blushed and rushed to apologize, reaching out to him with one hand and covering her mouth with the other.

Steve laughed, taking her hand in his. “No problem. This guy overshadows me any day of the week.”

“Only in stature,” Thor argued. “Never in spirit.”

The elevator dinged open on the penthouse. Darcy let out an excited squeal and went clattering out of the elevator. “Hi!” she greeted, voice at least two octaves above her normal speaking voice. “Oh, my god, you’re so… glowly, and big, and freaking _tentacles_!”

Startled by her abrupt approach, the tentacles closest to the elevator reared back in alarm. Undeterred, Darcy reached out and put a confident hand on the trunk of one large tentacle. “And so soft,” she cooed. “I want to just give you a hug!”

 _This is Steve colony?_ The colony asked uncertainly, poking at her with one experimental tentacle. She jumped as it hit a ticklish spot and then turned to poke it back. The tentacle jolted backward in surprise.

Steve managed not to laugh, but only barely. It would have, again, been more accurate to say she was Thor colony, but Steve just said, _Yes. Her name is Darcy._

 _…Darcy,_ the colony mused. It grabbed her wrist with one strong tentacle and picked her up. _Darcy is female,_ it said triumphantly. _Not damaged. Wants connection?_

Before the procreation conversation could start again, Steve put one arm around Jane and propelled her forward. _Say hi,_ he urged.

_Um. Hi? I’m Jane._

Temporarily distracted from examining Darcy, the colony surged forward to pluck Jane out of Steve’s grip. She squeaked as her feet left the floor and Thor boomed with laughter. The tentacle twisted her around until she was held parallel to the floor with one leg pointed up and her arms out to either side. It snaked a dozen slender tentacles into her clothing, making her giggle, which made the colony warm with pleasure.

 _Jane,_ the colony purred. _Darcy?_

 _Darcy is. She would… if it’s okay, she would like. Um. Connection?_ Jane tried, stumbling. She didn’t communicate telepathically often, and had limited knowledge of the colony’s vocabulary. Steve was charmed by her unfeigned shyness whenever they met.

Still held off the ground by her wrist, Darcy was wrapped up in a dozen thick coils and the two women were pulled immediately into the nest. “Yes! This is _so_ freaking cool!” Darcy shouted as she was passed from tentacle to tentacle.

 _I so want to be in there right now,_ Clint whined. He was staring wide-eyed at the spectacle from where he was trying, unsuccessfully, to teach the colony how to play video games. The colony took that as a request and abandoned the controller to pull Clint in. He grabbed Natasha at the last second and they disappeared into the main mass together.

“I’m just going to set these right here,” Happy said uncomfortably. He was flushed a bright shade of red and trying not to look. He set the suitcases down and accepted a handshake from Steve before scrambling back into the elevator.

“Better take the armor off,” Steve said to Thor. He wasn’t sure whether to feel embarrassed or amused, and just settled for fond. A strange life: that was an understatement. “I get the impression the colony doesn’t like it so much.”

The shadow of anger disappeared completely from the Aesir, and Thor agreed with a ready smile. “Indeed it does not. Might you assist me?”

Steve obligingly helped him out of the heavy armor and Thor leapt into the mass of tentacles as if skydiving. The colony caught him with a happy trill and he disappeared in seconds.

 _Happy, happy lights,_ the colony exclaimed, glowing gold. _Connection. Pleasure._

Steve was just happy he didn’t hear ‘Steve colony procreates,’ and left in search of his lover.

~*~

Steve found Tony in the temporary lab that used to be a guest room. He didn’t want to be separated so far from the colony, but he needed lab space to work on the weapons and defenses he was frantically designing to combat the Chitauri. So he brought up a ton of sensitive equipment, a very curious Dum-E, and made Bucky into a lab assistant. Steve stepped carefully over the tentacle that stretched from the living room, down the hall, and around the door frame to wrap around Tony’s waist.

Leaning against the doorjamb, Steve watched Tony work. Bucky stood calmly next to him, obligingly holding down a strip of metal while Tony bent over it with a soldering iron. Dum-E, left with nothing to do, was crouched level with Tony’s waist, examining the tentacle curiously. The tentacle, wrapped twice around Tony’s waist, returned the robot’s regard, flickering over its metal arm and twining around one finger.

 _Shiny,_ it said, tugging on Dum-E. Dum-E tugged back, whirring in what Steve had come to think of as amusement.

 _If you two are going to play tug-of-war, you’re not going to do it with me in the middle of you,_ Tony warned. The colony considered this carefully and, as a solution, a second tentacle snaked into the room, pausing briefly to pet the back of Steve’s legs. Within seconds, Dum-E and the tentacle were happily playing in the limited space while Bucky watched with rapt attention.

“Children,” Tony muttered, but he sounded fond.

Steve stepped into the room. “What are you working on?”

Tony jumped, but Bucky only flickered a glance at him and went back to watching the robot and the tentacle play.

“Drones,” Tony explained after a deep breath and a dirty look over his shoulder. Steve smiled innocently back at him. “If I get it right, I can have the fabrication units working on them day and night. There would be a few thousand of them by the time the Chitauri get here. Limited AI, armored enough to withstand a few hits, armed enough to do some damage to the skyski jerks. The best part is that they’re armed with an explosive, and should be able to withstand the vacuum of space. If I can get them up to the mothership, they can take her out.”

“How are you going to keep them from falling into the wrong hands?” Steve asked, picking up one of the completed drones. It was about as long as his forearm with a snubbed nose and a flared tail.

“Jarvis will run herd. Any of them go off the grid, the insides melt like chocolate on a car dashboard. Ditto if they stop following orders, or show any signs of unauthorized tinkering. When the battle is over, any of them that are left over come straight home and join the home defenses.”

Steve glanced over the table and found four more of the drones, each one subtly different, and he guessed these were drones Mark I through IV. He quirked an eyebrow and gave Tony a once-over. “How long has it been since you slept?”

Tony, conditioned not to like that question, ignored it and reached for his coffee cup. He discovered it was empty and looked at it in shock. He set the cup down and returned to his soldering. Steve let him go for a few more minutes until he reached out, picked up the cup, and was once again startled to find it empty. Steve took it away from him. Bucky unexpectedly held out his left hand and Steve handed it over. Without being asked or asking for permission, he left the room with the cup cradled carefully in the metal hand.

“Tony… How long?”

“Mmmm… what day is it?”

“Tuesday.”

“Still Tuesday or next Tuesday?” Tony asked for clarification.

Steve sighed. “Still Tuesday. Thor is back, Jane and Darcy are saying hello to the colony.”

“Heard that. Felt it too. Clint is a weird and brave guy.” He glanced around, no doubt looking for his coffee cup again.

Steve took his hand and tugged him around until they were face-to-face. “Tony, you can’t keep pushing yourself like this,” he said gently.

“I slept. I sleep. This is- there are aliens, and we have deadlines. I just need to finish this, and then the fab units will take over, and I’ll sleep. Promise.” Tony held up both hands to show that his fingers weren’t crossed, but he was keeping his eyes very wide and not blinking, the way he did when he was so far beyond the point of being tired that he was crossing over into manic.

“You haven’t been to bed since Saturday night, have you?” Steve asked, exasperated. He’d been gone over night in Washington, and Tony had still been up when Steve left Monday morning.

“I… maybe. I took a nap with the colony,” he said triumphantly. “We watched “Big Love,” and I fell asleep in the nest.”

“That was last week,” Steve reminded him with a sound that wanted to be annoyed, but mostly came out amused. He kissed Tony’s forehead. “Let’s get some sleep. I could use some after dealing with all the politicians.”

“I told you to make Pepper do that.”

“Pepper has enough to do.” Steve steered him away from table, but Tony interrupted their progress and instead moved Steve onto a stool. It had a high back but no arms, and was wider than the average work stool. Steve settled on it and waited to see what Tony wanted.

“I am way too awake for bed,” Tony told him, running his fingers down Steve’s arms. “I think I need to be worked out.” He pressed a kiss to Steve’s throat. “Totally exhausted.” Another open mouthed kiss to the space behind his ear. “So thoroughly fucked that the logic will stop keeping my eyes open.”

Steve’s breath came out a low whine and all thoughts of bed fled. His hands came up on their own and caught Tony by the back of the head to pull him into a hard kiss. Steve hadn’t even noticed the mass of tentacles joining them until a strong limb wound through the slats in the back of the stool and pulled him tight against it. He lifted his hips eagerly to be stripped out of his pants and Tony barely managed to snag a bottle out of the pocket of his sweats before they were yanked down his legs.

“Insistent,” Tony muttered, his lips jerked up into a smile. It took no coaxing to the get the colony to move Tony onto Steve’s lap. His hands were still free for the moment, so he took advantage of it and held onto Tony’s hips. They rocked together, a smooth motion that the colony could appreciate. It moved against them in waves and rolls, holding Steve firmly to the stool and Tony firmly to Steve.

“Missed you,” Steve said, mouthing down Tony’s neck.

“You were only gone overnight.” Tony laughed. The colony shivered with pleasure at the sound and it made them both moan. Tony shuddered under his hands.

“Doesn’t matter. Still missed you.”

Mimicking the colony’s motion was the only way to move within the grip of the limbs. Tony figured it out the first day the colony grabbed him, while Steve had already been in its grasp for nearly two. Steve was in awe of his flexibility as he worked legs and spine in a serpentine undulation to get to his knees.

 _Let me move my arms and I will show you something amazing,_ Tony promised the colony with a wicked grin for Steve.

Steve let out a low moan as the colony obligingly gave Tony free use of his arms, and Tony used it to pour lubricant over his fingers. Steve could only squirm as Tony reached back and pushed two fingers into himself. His mouth fell open, and his eyes slid closed. Steve loved that about Tony, how tactile and comfortable he was with his own body.

 _Tony is glowy, happy lights,_ the colony reported, pleasure rippling through the limbs holding them together. It tightened a tentacle on Tony’s wrist to figure out why, but Tony didn’t give it the opportunity. His pleasure glazed eyes fluttered open to lock onto Steve’s as he reached down to run a slick hand over Steve’s cock. He squeezed the base of it with his slick fingers and winked at Steve.

“Tony, don’t hurt yourse-” Steve’s breath cut his words off. The air felt cold and sharp on his throat as he sucked it in past the paralysis of Tony sinking down on him.

 _Not happy lights,_ the colony amended, worried. _Bad flash? Pain?_

 _Not pain,_ Tony corrected _Or… um… intentional pain. Just. It’s just-…. Big, God somehow I forget that every time – Intense. Just intense._

“Go slow,” Steve panted, knowing that Tony wouldn’t back off now unless Steve actually said he didn’t want it, and Steve was not that good at lying. He held himself painfully still, consumed with the pressure and heat of Tony’s body. It was a physical effort not to just yank Tony down, to bury himself in his lover until the heat welded them together and the colony bond made it impossible to tell which part was him and which part was Tony.

Tony let out a startled curse as Steve’s cock pushed through the last resistance and he slid down until they rested flushed against each other. His eyes opened slowly, the pleasure sharpened by an edge of discomfort, but he looked radiant and smug. “Missed this,” he said finally.

Steve didn’t respond because he couldn’t. His mind was white with heat, his mouth no longer connected to his brain. He leaned forward in the colony’s grip and rested his lips on Tony’s collarbone, breathing in the unique scent of him – oil, ozone, and the bite of metal, with something earthy and spicy underneath. It was like learning to breathe under water, and that didn’t terrify him at all.

It started with a slow circle of Tony’s hips. He bit into his lip and moved the opposite way, setting up a slow rhythm. Steve leaned back and braced his legs against the tentacles wrapped around him. He had just enough leverage to manage a roll of his hips. The motion made Tony jerk, his head going back. He lifted himself up a few inches and then back down. Their eyes met and stayed locked as Tony picked a steady pace and stuck to it. His abs and thighs twitched under the strain and Steve lifted to meet him, driving a groan out of his chest.

The colony pulsed gold where it wrapped around them. _Connection_ , it said approvingly as the last of the stretching burn faded and Tony started to move faster. A broad limb wound around Tony’s chest and up his back to support his shoulders. Steve nearly came out of his skin as the limb pulled Tony back to angle that the law of gravity would have made impossible for them alone. Tony’s entire body twitched as it set him up perfectly to press Steve into his prostate with every minute shift of his weight. Steve threw his head back, overwhelmed by Tony’s expression and the sounds he made.

A curious limb, no larger around than a pencil, explored the expanse of skin where their bodies joined, wrapping firmly around the base of Steve’s erection and prodding at the muscle stretched tightly around him.

“Oh, _fuck_ -!” Tony gasped, shivering. The colony wrapped him up tightly, drawing his arms in against his sides.

Steve shifted restlessly at the new stimulus until the tentacles around him tightened as well. He didn’t get a word out before a tentacle wrapped around his throat and prodded at his lips. He took the blunt end enthusiastically, needing some outlet. Tony’s eyes were wide, pupils blown, as he watched Steve suck on the tentacle. He’d gotten a little more practice at this since the colony’s last visit, and judging by the blinding glow in the limb as he moved his tongue over the soft flesh, the colony wholeheartedly approved. Steve kept his eyes on Tony and tried not to come apart at the seams as the tentacle wrapped around his cock pushed the slender tip into Tony’s body and continued in a spiral all the way up Steve’s length.

Tony, mouth unencumbered, cussed loudly and fluently. Steve had never admitted it before, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying, _I love your filthy mouth_. A small part of his mind was aware that his team was listening to this whole exchange, but he couldn’t be made to care.

“Oh… God, fuck – that’s… Jesus, you’re already big enough without- I don’t. Steve,” Tony whined helplessly.

 _Bad flash?_ The colony asked, going briefly still. It started to withdraw and Tony let out a strangled shout of denial.

_Not bad flash. Stay, please, for the love of Tesla, stay – that’s… Fuck. Good. Happy lights, serious happy lights._

Tony started to move, his breath coming out as a stream of whimpers and pleas. Steve was enamored of his face, expression drawn into something that looked like pain, but Steve could feel the ripple of his pleasure in every motion. The colony pulled him back further still until he was at a forty-five degree angle to Steve’s lap and pulled so tight against him that it was almost uncomfortable. Tony thrashed in the grip of the tentacles and happily accepted the limb that prodded at his mouth. Neither of them could move, and it didn’t matter because the slender tentacle coiled around Steve worked in a strong undulation that simulated movement perfectly. It found Tony’s prostate and went crazy with it when Tony arched hard into the touch. The colony glowed blinding gold, so bright it approached white and Steve had to close his eyes.

Screaming against the gag of the tentacle in his mouth, Tony came. His eyes were wide and wild in his face, locked onto Steve’s like he was falling and Steve was the only thing keeping him off the ground. Tony’s body tightened on him, and the colony rippled hard in response. It was enough to set him off, and his thighs burned to thrust, to capture, to drive his release. The tentacle around his throat tightened beyond the point of comfort and for a second he was without oxygen or blood. His vision grayed around the edges and he came in that space like the floodgates opening. The colony released its hold on his throat and the oxygen and blood flowing back into his head was like a second orgasm. He was aware of all the needy, desperate sounds he made against the limb in his mouth, but the blinding light of the colony and the thunder of his pulse made it hard to care.

 _Good flash,_ Tony said finally. The tentacle pulled out of his mouth and he smiled up at Steve lazily. _So many things are okay with this, I don’t even know where to start._

Steve laughed helplessly, his body aching with the strain and the sound muffled by the limb still stroking his tongue. He opened his mouth and the limb withdrew, caressing his face and leaving a wet trail behind that cooled quickly.

 _You guys,_ Clint said into the hazy silence that followed, _What the hell are you teaching the colony- Oh, that. God. Such a good idea. Sir, lube?_

 _Already on it,_ Phil responded blithely.

If Steve hadn’t personally seen the man come apart, that might have convinced him that Phil really was an android after all.

~*~

Over the weeks, they took up residence in the living room. The colony was very unhappy about having to let them go so frequently, and no one minded sleeping in the nest. Bucky still hadn’t shown any intention of approaching the colony, but he stayed close nonetheless, sleeping on a pallet in the corner while the rest of the team cuddled with the colony. Sam stayed out of the penthouse suite altogether and checked in with them over comms or met with Steve on another floor.

“It’s just not right,” he explained to Steve one day after Steve returned from another military meeting, “It’s cool for you, if it feels good – go for it. You know that I’m, whatever, about you and the team. But I am not going anywhere near a whole big pile of tentacles that are going pass on some kind of STD that means I can hear everyone in my head. I can hear ya’ll just fine with my ears.”

Steve’s initial response was indignation on the colony’s behalf, but he made himself see the situation from Sam’s perspective and remembered his initial concerns. He also remembered standing in Central Park eyeing the colony like it was… an alien. He patted Sam on the shoulder.

“I’ve never asked you to join the colony. You’re fine the way you are. And honestly, a little perspective isn’t a bad thing. Let me know if you feel like anyone is trying to pressure you.”

Sam let out a breath, relaxing a rush that made Steve realize how tense he must have been. Steve wondered if Sam would have left if Steve tried to press the issue, or if he would have gone along with it and resented it later.

“Thanks, Cap,” Sam said with a smile. “Now, I’ve got some liaising to do with Ms. Potts, so… go enjoy your reunion while you can. Only a week or so left before the big fight.” The reminder was sobering for both of them. They parted with terse nods, Sam to meet Pepper in the lobby, and Steve back up to the penthouse.

Steve hated that their reunion came with such a dark cloud, and he hated that his chest ached with resentment whenever he was pulled out of the tower. He wanted to lock his whole team in the penthouse and just stay curled up with the colony, but they had precious little time to get the world ready for an invasion. On top of all that, they couldn’t let on to the civilian population that they were expecting an invasion, or mass hysterical panic would sweep the globe and probably do half of the Chitauri’s work for them. Steve hated the lie by omission, hated every time a reporter thrust a microphone in his face and asked, _So how is it living with the infamous Tony Stark_? And he had to smile and answer _It’s never dull, ma’am,_ instead of yelling that it was none of her damned business and she should be home with her family instead of spreading useless celebrity gossip.

Steve leaned back against the elevator wall and drew in a slow breath. He was in his military dress uniform - not a modern army uniform, as he wasn’t a part of the modern army, but a World War II uniform with all the ribbons and medals he’d been awarded both during the war and after his ‘death.’ The left side of his jacket was heavy with them and he thought it was ridiculous to display so much, but it reminded the military brass he had to deal with that he wasn’t just a civilian, wasn’t just a national icon. He’d seen combat, he’d fought these aliens before, and he’d survived a lot more horrors than the average man. He wasn’t a PR stunt, and they needed to listen to him. It only worked about half the time.

“Honey, I’m home,” he called as he stepped out of the elevator. Thor stumbled across “I Love Lucy” the previous weekend and it played nearly nonstop for three days. Steve had to admit that he enjoyed the show himself. He smiled again thinking of what his mother’s reaction would have been to see Lucy and Ricardo in the same bed when the shows of his time never even hinted at the suggestion that a married couple might be having relations. He took his jacket off immediately and barely had it on a hangar before the colony reached a tentacle around the corner and wrapped around his waist. Steve curled his hands around the limb that was designated as _his_ \- the same limb that held onto him during the colony’s first visit. He petted it with one hand and smiled as it glowed.

 _Steve,_ the colony greeted on a sigh of pleasure. He knew that it missed him when he was gone, and it was a nice feeling to come back to someone who was so happy to see him every time.

“Have any luck with the military muckamucks?” Clint asked, peeking around the corner. He had his own tentacle leash curled around his waist and up his chest to drape over one shoulder.

“I don’t understand how they can _not_ take this seriously,” Steve admitted. That maybe wasn’t exactly right. He knew they were planning and mobilizing, but they were also scheming and probing. He couldn’t even count the number of uniformed men who had oh-so-casually hinted that, gosh, they would just so love to meet this friend of his – not for anything official, just because it would be so _interesting_. He was even more horrified by the women who’d tried to suggest _we can go back to your place_ with a seductive curl to their lips. Steve was disgusted the most with the officers who had obviously ordered subordinates into suggesting the meeting on the assumption that Steve would be less suspicious of an enlisted man who wanted a meet and greet, or a pretty gal who wanted some of his attention. He didn’t think any of them knew exactly how the colony communicated and what it could do, but after the initial collapse of SHIELD and finding out that Hydra was operating from within the organization, he couldn’t trust that they _didn’t_ either. It would be to the benefit of many to have a man or a woman inside the colony. Even if Steve would have been willing to introduce anyone to the colony, that was not a situation he wanted to contemplate.

“They’ll take it seriously enough in nine days,” Clint said grimly, making Steve wince.

“Where’s Tony?”

“Still in the workshop. He had to go down to the main lab to deal with the drones. I guess the fab units have been working overtime and made a mistake.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. “How big of a mistake?”

“A… dozen or so, might have escaped the lab and corned one of Stark Industries R&D geeks?”

“Was anyone hurt? Why didn’t someone tell me? It’s not like you can’t talk to me while my phone is off!” Steve’s heartbeat accelerated the way it always did when there was the chance of a civilian casualty on his watch, and his stomach plummeted in horror at the thought that one of Tony’s devices might have done it – Tony would mutilate himself over that kind of mistake.

“No one was hurt, you were busy, and it was taken care of in like, three minutes. Four, tops.”

“Three minutes and forty-one seconds,” Jarvis confirmed helpfully.

Clint beamed. “See? Three minutes and forty-one seconds. Jarvis had them locked down and heading home like good puppies before most of us even knew anything was wrong. It’s cool. Come on – there’s ice cream, and Nat is still out with the X-Men, so we can steal her praline pecan.”

Despite himself, Steve chuckled. The fright went out of him in a slow rush that left his limbs feeling heavy and cold. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Oh, sure. I’ll just tell her that Bruce stole it. All she’ll do is glower a bit, because it’s not like she’s going to go after _him_ with a filleting knife.”

“You think she’s going to believe that?”

“Not for a second.” Clint grinned, entirely unrepentant. He grabbed Steve’s wrist and hauled him to the kitchen, where he was not actually stupid enough to steal Natasha’s praline pecan ice cream.

Darcy, however, popped it open without the slightest hesitation, took a big spoonful and then stuck her cream covered tongue out at Clint and said, “She loves me more.”

~*~

“NASA has picked up the Chitauri fleet,” Pepper announced after another long meeting with the world leaders. She stepped over a tentacle stretched down the hallway to Tony’s increasingly less-makeshift upstairs lab. Steve followed the pale green limb with his eyes and tried not to feel annoyed that he hadn’t seen Tony in three days, despite being telepathically connected to the man. Pepper delicately side stepped another tentacle waving hopefully in front of her. The colony was fascinated by the women among their number and intrigued by Pepper. Steve pet the tentacle consoling when it drooped in disappointment.

“Don’t give me that puppy dog look, Steven Rogers,” Pepper said sternly. She looked tired, pale and drawn around the eyes. “I do not need a telepathic link to Tony, or to overhear what you two do to each other.” She held up her hands when Steve was going to make a token protest – though he wasn’t sure what he was protesting. He knew himself well enough to know that the last person he wanted in the colony was Tony’s ex-girlfriend, a woman he was still very much in love with even if he would never say it.

Steve cleared his throat. “NASA,” he reminded her, following her to the kitchen. She moved confidently to the bar and retrieved a glass of whiskey. She held up one hand for him to wait, tossed the generous shot back, and then poured herself another and sat down.

“Yes, NASA has found the fleet. And if NASA has, it’s only a matter of time before astronomers and alien conspiracy theorists find it too.”

“To be fair,” Steve pointed out, “It’s not a conspiracy theory if it’s fact.” He didn’t say it, tried not to even think it too hard in case he accidentally let it slip to the colony, but a big part of him hoped that someone did see it and leak it. While they were prepared and he was as confident as he could be that they had a chance against the Chitauri, he didn’t feel right keeping the impending invasion from the people.

Pepper waved a dismissive hand at him. “The point is that we’re not going to be able to keep this under wraps much longer.” She darted a nervous glance at the colony, where it was mostly wrapped around a very relaxed Thor and Jane Foster. A few tentacles stayed close to them at the bar in never ceasing hope that Pepper would come to her senses. “What they haven’t found is any evidence of your friends.”

“It’s a big universe, Pepper,” Steve said cautiously. “And we don’t know how they travel, really. I know they can survive in space on their own, but they also have some kind of portal technology. They might be just opening a portal on the moon for all we know.”

“And you can’t get it to maybe _explain_ that for us?” Pepper asked. “This would go a lot easier if I had some concrete information for them, more to reassure them with other than _a giant ball of tentacles is on the way to save the day._ ” She snorted a very indelicate laugh into her third glass, sending a fine mist of whiskey over the bar surface. “Sorry, I just keep thinking about the flying spaghetti monster, and I can’t-” She took a deep breath and fanned her face while Steve watched her in alarm.

“Flying spaghetti monster?” Steve asked finally.

“Real religion,” Tony announced from the other side of the room. He had his nose buried in a tablet, and was perched on top of the thick tentacle wrapped around his waist. He didn’t even glance around as it moved him through the colony, though he did turn to nuzzle against a tentacle that reached up to stroke his face as he passed.

“I’m sorry, did you say the flying spaghetti monster is a real religion?” Steve asked, uncertain. He glanced over at Pepper, because Tony sometimes made up things about the world in the twenty-first century that were so outlandish Steve had to believe them when set up against things like bottled water, milk that cost more than four dollars a gallon, and the Dodgers on the wrong side of the country.

“Yes,” Pepper answered once she started breathing normally. “Though, to be fair, it’s a religion based on the rejection of religious dogma and fanaticism.”

“And they’re called…”

“The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,” Tony affirmed. His bare feet touched down on the tile next to Steve and he took his eyes off his tablet just long enough for him to kiss Steve’s cheek. Steve blushed faintly, weirdly touched by the casual gesture of greeting. “They’re going to get a huge upswing in membership after this,” Tony guessed, appropriating Pepper’s glass before she could swallow a fourth glass of whiskey.

Pepper’s expression went from shock, to outrage, to understanding in about three seconds. “Thanks,” she sighed.

Tony downed the shot himself and set the glass back down. “Always willing to take one for the team,” he muttered. “So, hey, the drones are operational. I’ve got eight hundred of them all just waiting to be deployed, should have another thousand or so in the next nine days, provided that we don’t have any more issues.”

“Issues?” Steve asked, putting every ounce of innocent interest into his voice that he could manage. “What sort of issues could you possible mean?”

Tony did that thing where he pretended that he couldn’t hear Steve talking to him. “Jarvis, would you mind running those figures again if I get a fifth fab unit running by Wednesday?”

Ignoring Tony’s ignoring of him, Steve continued, turning to give Tony his full attention, “I don’t guess you could mean that _issue-_ ”

“-I really don’t think that is even a problem-“

“-When some of your drones escaped to cornered-”

“-It was handled in less than four minutes-”

“-and threatened an innocent civilian, could you?”

“-And it was just _Peter_ , that intern kid, and no one was hurt, anyways. The intern even _pet_ the drone for chrissake, so obviously no harm done.” Tony flickered a glance sideways to gauge Steve’s reaction to his argument. When Steve just crossed his arms and said nothing, Tony cleared his throat and started flipping through screens on the tablet.

“Oh, this is great,” Pepper said with a laugh that quickly devolved into helpless giggles. “Is this how _we_ looked from the outside all those years?” She was panting for breath through the laughter and fanning herself again, her cheeks flushed bright apple red with alcohol and mirth.

 _Pepper is…not happy lights?_ The colony asked uncertainly. _Distressed?_

 _Pepper is not distressed,_ Steve answered, not sure how to explain Pepper being half way to drunk. He’d never seen her drunk before, and he was worried she might stop breathing if she didn’t stop laughing.

 _Intense?_ The colony guessed, its go-to for that gray area that hovered in between pleasure and pain.

 _Yes. Intense. I’ve only ever seen her drunk once,_ Tony put in, _And that turned bad in a heartbeat. So let’s just… no more with the whiskey, and find Happy?_

 _I’ll take care of it,_ Phil volunteered. He appeared a moment later from somewhere in the folds of the nest, with his phone already to his ear.

“Pep, let’s get you some water,” Tony suggested, putting an arm around her shoulders and easing her away from the bar where she was looking for another glass.

“I can’t really handle these meetings, Tony, I can’t do it. They’re all like… like giant babies. I thought working with _you_ was like dealing with a five year-old with a credit card, but you’re like… you’re like someone really easy to deal with compared to these. These. _Jerkfaces_. And I have this horrible feeling like I’m going to mess it all up and destroy the world-”

“You are not going to destroy the world, Pepper. First of all, this is just a measly little invasion, and we’re going to handle that. And second of all, I’ve been recording all these jerkfaces anyway. If they try anything sneaky, we’ll just leak the recordings of them discussing acceptable civilian losses against the retrieval of technology to YouTube.”

“ _Tony_!” Steve shouted, mostly because he was horrified that the leaders had been discussing how many civilians they were willing to let die in order to get their hands on alien technology.

“That is such a good… _Thank you_ , Tony,” Pepper sighed, falling against his chest. She nuzzled into his neck and moaned, “Sometimes I miss the way you smell.”

Steve would have been so extremely jealous if it wasn’t Pepper, and he didn’t sympathize. If he didn’t have Tony anymore, he would miss the way he smelled too – and how warm he was, and the way his body fit just exactly into Steve’s, and even the way he sniped and fought, and made inappropriate comments at meetings, and disobeyed orders, and kept Steve sharp.

Tony looked over the top of Pepper’s head at Steve, his eyes begging for understanding. Steve just nodded, and looked away when Tony kissed her forehead and tucked her in closer to his chest. Tony got her to drink a glass of water by the time Happy arrived at the elevator to collect her, and she slid easily from Tony’s arms to Happy’s.

“I’m sorry I abandoned you,” she said just as the elevator door closed, leaving Tony with such a stricken look on his face that Steve let go of whatever jealousy he’d been fighting. He crossed the room to pull Tony into his arms.

“I love you,” he said softly, and just held tighter when Tony shuddered against his chest. The colony wound a tentacle around them and they stayed like that until Clint decided to introduce Thor to Korean boy bands. The colony went nuts with the noise, flashing blue and gold in such quick succession that Steve feared Korean pop was about to become a regular fixture in the living room. He sighed and Tony laughed.


	7. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

Three days before the Chitauri fleet was projected to arrive, the story finally hit national news. Steve stayed in the comfortable embrace of the colony’s limbs while the TV showed the reactions around the world. The entire team sat in the living room with Tony flipping through news stations to show clips of leaders making speeches, the Saudi king flat denying the American sensationalist ploy, and the reactions of the people around the world. Steve was heartened and depressed in turn as they watched one small South African town pulling together, and a town in Wyoming put under martial law after the local law enforcement was overwhelmed with riots. Unfortunately, the negative stories far outweighed the uplifting ones, and he was sad to admit that it didn’t surprise him much.

 _Steve colony is not happy lights,_ the colony said, _Steve colony is bad flash, sad lights._

 _Friend Tony, perhaps we should turn to other things,_ Thor suggested. He was unusually quiet, his expression forlorn. Jane snuggled under his arm and kept her face turned away from the TV. On his other side, Darcy had her legs tucked up against Thor’s side and her head on Natasha’s shoulder so Natasha could stroke her hair.

“Can we put on something less damn depressing?” Sam asked, not privy to their conversation. He was perched uneasily on the kitchen counter. The colony kept away from him but for a single thin tendril that Sam petted once like a child touching a snake. It was nonetheless emboldened by the contact, and stayed in easy reach in case Sam changed his mind on the petting front.

“Going to be a rough three days,” Tony said, but he did finally turn off the TV and had Jarvis cue up an episode of “Teen Wolf” for Bucky, who was strangely captivated by the show. Tony responded to his interest with a mix of _you have got to be kidding me_ and _see, I told you so._ For once, Bucky was uninterested in the show. He sat on the edge of the cushion nest with a thick tentacle draped across his knees. Ignoring the rest of the team, he ran his right hand over it like he was petting a cat. The colony hummed in pleasure and pulsed a lazy gold at each pass. It was very curious about his metal arm, but Bucky hadn’t responded well the first time it tried to explore, and Steve asked that it leave the shiny appendage alone.

But for the show in the background, the room fell silent. Steve kept his eyes on Bucky, and he knew he wasn’t the only one. Despite looking right at him, Steve nearly choked on his own breath when Bucky looked up with clear eyes and said, “Tony?”

In Steve’s lap, Tony froze. He glanced over his shoulder at Steve, who nodded quickly and nudged him forward. A request to the colony had Tony seated beside Bucky in a moment. “Hey, Bucky. What’s up?”

“My head is really… strange. Am I dead?” he looked Tony straight in the eye, his expression full of pleading. It was amazing to see the blank doll look gone and Steve drank the image in, storing it away for when Bucky slipped back under his programing. The team held a collective breath while Bucky waited for Tony to answer.

“No, Bucky, you’re not dead. You just have a damaged connection, and it makes it hard for you to think clearly,” Tony explained slowly. Steve was grateful that he reined himself in for the conversation. Tony’s shoulders and neck were stiff under the pressure of making himself behave, and Steve could tell from the curve of his lips that he was doing his best to make sure he didn’t speak without meaning to.

“Oh.” Bucky blinked. His eyes passed sightlessly over the room, resting briefly on each member of the team without seeing them. “I thought I might be dead because I keep hearing Steve in my head. Kid is still bossing me around.” Bucky’s lips twitched into a tired smile. He looked down at his hand where it rested on the tentacle. “I’ve killed a lot of people, Tony,” he whispered hoarsely, but he didn’t look up. “I keep thinking that I’m dead, but then I wake up, and my master tells me to kill these people, because they’re bad, and I’m saving the world. But it doesn’t make sense, and there’s all this blood… and then I die again, but I just sit there in the darkness and see all their faces.” He looked up at Steve, miserable. “I’m sorry I let you die.”

Steve’s throat closed and he couldn’t get any words past the block, couldn’t pull in any breath to break it open. It was drowning all over again and pressure pushed against the backs of his eyes.

“Bucky,” Tony interrupted gently, “Steve is not dead, and neither are you. You’re safe now, and we want to help you. The colony would really like to help you.”

Bucky looked down at the tentacle. He traced the length of it with his eyes to where it met the rest of the colony, filling the living room wall to wall with gently writhing limbs. He stroked the tentacle again and smiled as it glowed under his hand.

Tony waited a beat to see if Bucky would respond, but grew antsy and asked, “Would you like your mind back? All you would have to do is let the colony bond with you – it will probably want to sex you up, but you don’t have to, it doesn’t need that to help you. It never has with Bruce, and they’re thick as thieves.”

Bucky’s head tilted and he cut his eyes over at Bruce, wrapped up in comfortable coils between Phil’s legs. “Bruce Banner,” Bucky intoned. “Designation: Hulk. Threat level alpha, standing orders to execute on sight.”

Heart thundering, Steve surged out of the loose grip of the limbs holding him. He put himself between Bucky and Bruce before Bruce could do more than take a startled breath. “Bucky, no,” Steve said sharply, “You are not to harm anyone in this room.”

Bucky looked at Steve speculatively. “Steven Rogers. Designation: Captain America. Threat level alpha prime. Standing orders to execute on sight.” His eyes narrowed, brows drawn together. “Current orders supersede. Do no harm.” He blinked up at Steve and a smile stretched across his lips. “Hi, pipsqueak.”

Steve felt weak with the relief that washed through him. He stumbled and would have fallen if not for the tentacles wrapped around him from chest to waist. The colony moved him without being asked to kneel in front of Bucky. He blinked away the moisture gathering in his eyes and returned his friend’s smile. “Hi, Buck.”

“Tony says you’re not dead.” He frowned. “But I look at you and it makes me want to show my throat.”

Steve reached out thoughtlessly and put his hands on his friend’s face. “You never have to do that to me, Bucky, not ever.” It was the first time he’d touched Bucky without the man wincing away. Bucky leaned into his hands.

“I don’t mean to be a dick and rush this,” Tony said cautiously, “But your lucid spells don’t really last long. Will you let us help you?”

Tired eyes watching Steve curiously, Bucky asked, “Do you want to break my programing?”

“Yes, Bucky, _yes_. I want you to have control again, I want you to be _you_.”

Bucky blinked. “I slipped my leash once,” he said in a measured voice. “I killed my master. I took his throat out with my teeth and disemboweled him with my hand.” He held up the metal hand and stared at it, seeing something far away. “I killed twenty-seven handlers before my programing reasserted.” He finally turned to look at Steve again. “Why do you want to break my programing? I am functional in this current state and you are safer.”

Steve didn’t let on how he felt about Bucky’s confession. He trembled with the force of it, but in his head all he could scream was _Good,_ and _I wish you’d killed more of them_. Hydra was always able to pull that reaction out of him. He wasn’t proud of it, but there it was. “I’m going to take my chances, Bucky. Whatever it takes, I don’t care. I just want you to be alive again.”

“I won’t live long if I kill you,” Bucky pointed out.

Summoning a smile, Steve said, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve gotten pretty hard to kill these days.”

Bucky swallowed hard, and then he nodded. “Okay.”

Steve didn’t even know how to respond. He was overwhelmed with gratitude when Tony persisted, “Tell us what you understand is going to be happening.” Tony’s eyes flickered to Steve and he said, “Informed consent.”

“The tentacle creature you refer to as the colony will create a telepathic bond with me in an effort to repair what you refer to as a damaged connection,” Bucky reported dutifully. “Which may involve being ‘sexed up,’ but is not required.”

“And you’re cool with that?”

In an unprecedented show of humor, Bucky’s lips twitched into a roguish smirk that Steve long despaired of ever seeing again. “I haven’t had sex in more than seventy years. I don’t mind.”

“Good man.” Tony clapped him on the back, and Bucky jerked forward. His expression went slack and he looked at Steve in askance, tensing beneath Steve’s hands. “And we’ve lost him. But you all are witnesses, let’s do this.”

 _Hey, so shiny Bucky over here would really like connection,_ Tony told the colony.

 _Be careful,_ Steve cautioned, interjecting before the colony could do more than twitch in excitement. _He has a damaged connection and he may not realize what’s going on_.

 _Two colonies,_ the colony agreed. It was the same verbiage it used to describe the issue between Bruce and his green counterpart. Moving slowly and carefully, it wound the tentacle over Bucky’s knees around his waist. Bucky lifted both of his arms and looked down at it in mingled confusion and concern.

“Relax, Bucky, please,” Steve said gently, frustrated that they lost him so quickly. Bucky glanced briefly at Steve and then went limp in the colony’s grasp. He gave no protest or struggle as the colony rearranged itself it from the loose shape that covered most of the living room floor into a ball to accommodate the shape of the nest.

 _Take me in with him,_ Steve requested. He didn’t protest when Tony followed him, but he also didn’t argue when the rest of the team quietly disengaged and headed for the elevator. By the time he made it to the nest, Bucky was already suspended in the middle of it. He was unmoving in the colony’s grasp – not relaxed, but more like a doll with broken joints. Steve winced at the sight. The colony stripped Bucky slowly, caressed him gently, but otherwise just held him secure in the center.

 _Damaged,_ the colony mourned. It pulsed a muddy orange in mingled unhappiness and sorrow. _Very bad lights._

It was so gentle as it manipulated Bucky’s body that Steve wanted to cry with the relief and the anxiety of it. The colony learned so fast and evolved so quickly that Steve was regularly awed by it. The colony moved Steve to rest between Tony’s legs, reclined against his chest with a broad tentacle forming a comfortable barrier between the arc reactor and Steve’s neck. He watched in agony while the colony examined Bucky’s numerous scars and prodded at the place where his prosthesis met his shoulder with a distinct sense of banked anger that surprised Steve. He wasn’t sure if the colony was responding to their dislike of Bucky’s prosthesis- or more, what it represented, or if it formed the negative opinion on its own, but he didn’t ask.

After a thorough examination, the colony tapped a familiar blunt tentacle against Bucky’s lips. Bucky opened his mouth without hesitation or protest, and Steve shuddered. He remembered Bucky sitting in the quinjet, head tipped curiously as he asked, _do you wish to wipe me and start over?_

The colony slid the limb into his mouth, but did nothing else. It cradled him while Bucky slackly accepted the weight on his tongue. They stayed that way for what could have been an eternity before Bucky stirred. His eyes opened and he jerked in the grasp of the tentacles, making a panicked noise around the limb in his mouth. He choked on it and the colony tightened its hold in response.

 _Bucky is damaged,_ the colony explained patiently. _Colony keeps Bucky warm._

 _What the fuck?_ Bucky demanded, his voice exploding into their shared headspace like a battering ram. Steve winced and felt Tony jerk behind him. Tony had been silent since entering the nest and he held his tongue under the assault.

 _Bucky?_ Steve probed quietly. _Do you remember where you are?_

In the coils, Bucky twisted until he found Steve. His eyes narrowed in confusion, his breath speeding up in his chest. He struggled briefly. _I don’t… I…_ He swallowed hard and then asked, _This is the colony?_

Steve’s breath left his lungs in one relieved gust. _Yes, you’re in the safe nest._

 _I’ve dreamt about you before,_ Bucky said miserably, _When they freeze me, sometimes I dream about you. And the train. And that… that fucking place. Did I die on that table? Is it all just a dream from there?_

_No, Bucky. I came and got you. We fought together. I thought I lost you on the train._

_Steve… oh, God, the things I’ve done_! He thrashed, pitting his not inconsiderable strength against the limbs holding him suspended. _Please let me die this time!_ He sobbed around the limb still in his mouth, tossing his head in an effort to dislodge it.

 _Please release his mouth,_ Steve said, trying to keep his anxiety and horror to himself. The tentacles wrapped around him squeezed him tightly in an effort to soothe him, so he must not have been successful.

 _Connection,_ the colony said firmly, _Bucky is damaged._

 _Let me die,_ Bucky sobbed, _I don’t want the blood anymore!_

Steve fought against the hold of the colony while Tony made shushing noises in his ear that were absolutely not appropriate, because Bucky was terrified and in so much pain, and Steve couldn’t possibly let it go on a moment longer.

“Give the colony a chance to make this right,” Tony pleaded as Steve began to fight in earnest and the colony’s hold bordered on the edge of breaking something to keep him still. “You know it would never hurt him.”

 _Bucky is damaged,_ the colony repeated gently. _Bad lights, black lights. Damaged connection._

Steve sobbed while Bucky fought. He understood that the colony was trying to repair something that was very wrong, but his body didn’t respond to logic where Bucky was concerned, not any more. Tony’s reasonable voice behind him only made him angrier and he lashed out without even paying attention to what he was saying.

At some length, Bucky quieted and went slowly still. Steve was left gasping and shaking with Tony’s arms wrapped around his chest. The tentacle slid gently free of Bucky’s mouth and the colony moved Bucky to rest across Steve’s lap. Steve’s hands were freed and he reached out to his friend immediately. Bucky’s breath ghosted against Steve’s wrist, his pulse slowed from frenzied to normal, and he turned into Steve’s palm when Steve set a shaky hand on his cheek. He slept, expression relaxed and stripping years off of his familiar face. Steve brushed his hair back, something he’d wanted to do for months.

 _Bucky sleeps. Connection heals,_ the colony said. It cuddled the three of them closer. _Steve is bad flash, unhappy lights._

 _Sorry,_ Steve said. _Sorry, I just… he’s been hurt so much._ He didn’t know if the colony would understand, but he felt a ripple of something like agreement run through the colony bond.

 _Bucky is damaged,_ it said. _Bad connection heals slowly._

 _Thank you,_ Steve whispered, _Thank you so much for helping him._ He couldn’t make himself believe that Bucky was healed, but that conversation, no matter how brief and terrifying, had been Bucky – not a mindless doll, but Bucky. Steve shivered and Tony squeezed him tighter within the grip of the tentacles.

“It’s going to be okay,” Tony said soothingly. He kissed the top of Steve’s head and worked a hand beneath the coils to run his fingers through Bucky’s hair.

~*~

They must have fallen asleep. When Steve opened his eyes, he found Bucky reclined in his lap, facing him. Bucky was clear eyed, but his face was blank as he stared at Steve.

“Hi, Bucky,” Steve greeted cautiously. He trained his gaze on Bucky’s eyebrow in case he’d succumbed to his programing again.

Bucky looked around at the dome of gently glowing tentacles and back to Steve. “This isn’t going far to convince me I’m not dead,” he concluded finally.

Before Steve could say anything, Tony stirred behind him. He stretched and suggested, “Just go with it. I gave Bruce the same advice – hell of a happy ending.”

“You _did_ promise me sexing up,” Bucky noted.

Steve’s cheeks warmed, but he could practically feel Tony’s grin unfurling against his shoulder.

“I am a man of my word,” Tony purred. He worked a hand through the tentacles to reach Bucky’s chest and stroked down his ribs with blatant intent.

Steve’s stomach slipped down his spine and he felt a pressure beneath his ribcage that he couldn’t blame on the grip the colony had on him. Seeing Tony hold Pepper was an itching irritation on the back of his neck, but this? He couldn’t object – Bucky needed the contact, and they had never actually discussed the boundaries of their relationship. With all the casual touching between his colony members, he was actually surprised it had taken this long.

 _Please move me outside the nest,_ he requested softly, keeping his expression neutral to hide the giant fish hook yanking his ribs open.

 _Whoa, where are you going?_ Tony asked. He struggled to tighten his arm around Steve even as the colony gradually, unwillingly, separated him from the other two men. Steve sensed something like disappointment or disapproval in the colony, but it didn’t argue and Steve was grateful for that.

 _I’m not going to stop you, but I don’t have to stay and watch either. Have fun,_ Steve smiled. He tried to keep his tone light, and thought he probably failed, but what did Tony really expect?

_Um? Wait, don’t move him!_

Steve glared as the colony hesitated. This was one of those conflicts that confused and worried the colony – it didn’t understand the idea the members of the same colony could disagree, and any conflict tended to make the colony suspect a broken connection. It was uneasy with the multiple reassurances that conflict among individuals was normal, so they tried to do their arguing out loud.

“What’s happening right now?” Tony demanded, eyes narrowed at Steve where he hung awkwardly at the threshold of the nest, strong tentacles holding his arms in tight to his upper body while his legs dangled freely.

Steve darted his eyes over to Bucky. He was expressionless, but his gaze was sharp and considering as he looked back and forth between Steve and Tony. He looked quite comfortable in the folds of the colony, and more the point, he looked like _Bucky_. Steve would have done far more than walk out of the room while the man he loved took someone else to his bed if that’s what it took to help Bucky heal.

“Tony, it’s fine.” Steve smiled genuinely, gratitude warring with the snarling jealousy making his stomach flip. “I’m just not really one for voyeurism.”

“Wow. Okay, so you’re also not one for picking up cues, I guess. Christ, Steve, sometimes you are the densest person I’ve ever met, and considering how dense _I_ am, I think that says something.” He looked over at Bucky. “Sorry, big guy. I’d really like to join the sexing up, but my _boyfriend_ is not in the mood, I guess. And Steve, if you make me say ‘boyfriend’ one more time, I’m leaving you and going home with the colony-”

“Why are you getting angry at _me_ when you are the one jumping into bed with my best friend-”

“-Because – contrary to popular belief- I’m not actually fifteen and this is getting ridiculous. Seriously? We need a new title, because we are not in high school-”

“-It’s popular belief for a reason, and this rant is probably why-”

“-Thank you _God_ , and a roomful of teenage girls is not writing our scripts!”

They both stopped on the same breath and glared across the nest at each other. The mingled hurt and confusion in Steve’s belly morphed into indignation. He shook with the force of his irritation, wishing he could cross his arms over his chest, or at least brace his feet on something solid. There was something about arguing naked that always put him off balance. A choked sound called Steve’s attention to Bucky. His eyes widened as he took in his best friend’s face. Bucky’s lips trembled and he looked like he was holding his breath. For one horrifying second, Steve thought he was about to cry. Before he could get out the string of stupid reassurances and pleas, Bucky burst into chest-shaking peals of laughter.

 _Confusion,_ the colony whined. _Bucky is happy lights, Tony is flashy red lights, Steve is sad lights. Why?_

 _I’ll explain as soon as I understand_ , Steve promised, watching Bucky warily while Tony glared at him.

“You two deserve each other,” Bucky said when he finally managed to suck in a full breath. He devolved back into laughter for another few seconds, tried valiantly to stop himself, took one look at Tony and started up again.

“Now I’m starting to get offended,” Tony warned mutinously.

“You guys are _telepathic_ and you can’t communicate?” Bucky asked when he got himself under control. “Tony, let me share something about my best friend that I see hasn’t changed in the last century – he puts everyone else in front of his own feelings and needs, every time. This guy would take a bullet for anyone, would saw off his own arm if it meant saving someone a sprained ankle. Steve, Tony thought you were on board with the – whatever the hell goes on inside a nest of glowing tentacles. He wasn’t trying to ‘crawl in bed with your best friend’ _without you_. Dolt.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ve been under mind control for seventy-four years and I’ve got better perspective than either of you two idiots.”

“I think I liked you better as a puppet,” Tony muttered.

Steve shot Tony a sharp glance. “Don’t say that,” he hissed, his pulse picking up as if the mere mention of it would snap whatever connection Bucky had gained to his own mind.

“Well, you two are the ones who insisted I break my leash, so you don’t get to complain about it if I’m mouthy.” He gave Steve a soft smile that calmed the wild thundering of Steve’s heart. “I missed you. And just for the record, I don’t mind if you do want to hang around for sexing up.”

Steve gaped. “Bucky... You don’t owe-”

“You best not be about to suggest that I’m trying to pay you for saving me with sex, Steven Rogers,” Bucky warned coolly, eyes narrowing. A hint of the dangerous killer he’d become while Steve slept lurked in his eyes. Steve was so used to Bucky existing around the tower as a shadow, like a mostly flesh and blood version of one of Tony’s bots. Seeing Bucky awake, he’d thought of him only as the friend he’d lost on that train more than seven decades before. Somewhere along the line, he started treating Bucky like a wounded animal instead of a person who knew the right end of a pointy object.

 _Set me down please,_ Steve requested somberly. The colony tightened its hold on Steve’s chest and then slowly lowered him to the smooth weave of tentacles that made up the floor of the nest. “I have messed everything about this up so badly,” Steve confessed. “From the beginning. I’m sorry, Bucky.” He looked at Tony, whose face had gone impassive in that not-expression that meant he was burying whatever he was feeling and constructing a wall of sarcasm to protect it. “I say the wrong things to you a lot, Tony. I don’t know why you put up with me.”

Bucky rolled his shoulder in an uncomfortable shrug, and Tony tried to maintain his stony silence. He started to fidget within five seconds. Ten seconds later let his breath out in an explosive sigh.

“You are not allowed to pout,” he snarled. “I’m pretty sure that’s in the Geneva Conventions fine print. Captain America-slash-Steve Rogers is not allowed to pout during conflict resolution as it gives an unfair advantage.”

Tony was still glaring, but Steve laughed anyway. “I was under the ice for the Geneva Convention you’re talking about,” Steve pointed out. It was the first time he’d been able to say that- _I was under the ice_ -without feeling like the ice was still there, pressing into his spine.

“Well, I had them amended.”

“You can’t _amend-_ ”

“Please tell me that you two are getting married,” Bucky interrupted. “Please, because I don’t think I can handle not giving a best man speech for this.”

Steve groaned. “Bucky!”

“Fine. You two continue to argue. Don’t mind me.” Bucky rolled his eyes. The motion carried down his whole body, a full wave within the coil of the tentacles holding him on his knees across from Tony. “By the way, if I’m dead, I don’t even mind it. This thing is amazing.” Following the motion of his lithe body, the colony rippled and squeezed, pulsing as it caressed him. Steve had never looked at his friend that way before, but Bucky had never been _this_ before, this sensual creature of sinewy limbs and dangerous grace. This was no longer the boy he grew up with, or the man he pulled off a Hydra lab table, or even the soldier he fought a war beside. A shock of cognitive dissonance made him feel dizzy for a minute, as if he’d been gone for years and returned to realize his neighbor’s brat kid sister was all grown up and beautiful.

Steve looked over at Tony to find him staring back with a quiet heat burning in his eyes. He quirked a smile at Steve that was somehow tight. Steve’s stomach dropped for the second time as he finally realized what Bucky was saying to him. Tony was not trying crawl into bed with someone else for lust, or even for practicality – it wasn’t Steve letting the man he loved touch someone else. Tony was sharing _him_ , and his expression was open enough for that split second for Steve to see how vulnerable it made him feel.

Tony must have realized he’d been found out, because his expression shut down and he shivered in the colony’s grasp. He turned his face away with his jaw tight, long throat working on a hard swallow. Steve watched his profile. Awe spread in him like a wildfire. He couldn’t believe that he’d once thought Tony so self-centered that he wouldn’t step a foot in the mud if it meant saving someone’s life. Steve was deeply humbled that Tony chose to let him in, that he’d taken the leap of faith that lead to Steve having a family, a colony, his best friend back.

He looked at Bucky, but Bucky ignored him, stretching and curling into the colony, tilting his head to run his tongue along one soft tentacle. The green limb shuddered and lit up, pulsing gold in quick flashes like Morse code. The tentacle unwound from the mass and took Bucky’s tonguing as an invitation to examine his mouth. Bucky’s eyes opened and locked onto Steve’s as he worked his mouth over the blunt end of the tentacle. He might have been out of practice, but his body obviously remembered how to handle that weight in his mouth. Steve didn’t know how he felt about realizing Bucky obviously had some experience with his mouth. Bucky moaned around the tentacle, unblinking gaze never leaving Steve’s. It was both challenge and invitation. Steve, smiling back at him, chose to take both.

Remembering what he said the first time he was in the safe nest with Tony, Steve drew in a cleansing breath and requested, _Please bring them to me._

 _Connection,_ the colony said in firm approval, sounding almost exasperated, as if it had waited plenty long enough for Steve to reach a foregone conclusion. Bucky, still moving in the spiral of happy tentacles like an exotic dancer, was picked up while the colony rearranged Steve to its liking. Steve found himself partially on one side with his arms crossed over his chest and one leg pulled up at an angle. Bucky was brought to rest against him, arranged carefully so they fit snugly together from hip to chest. The thin tentacles wrapped around Steve’s ankle pulled his extended leg up and over Bucky’s body to hook around the small of his back. Steve was grateful again for his serum-enhanced flexibility as the colony tugged and twisted them into a knot.

“You two make a pretty picture,” Tony commented aloud. Steve couldn’t see him over the thick tentacles wrapped around his chest, but he could hear the longing in his lover’s voice.

 _Not quite a complete picture with you still over there,_ Steve said.

Bucky’s lips found Steve’s throat. He pushed into his friend’s touch, briefly struggling against the tentacles with a faint notion of getting his hands into Bucky’s hair. He gave up as the colony moved Tony to fit, easy as interlocking gears, against his back. Steve relaxed into him while the tentacles uncoiled to pull the three of them tightly together.

 _Perfect,_ Steve praised on a sigh. His head was at just the right angle to nuzzle Tony’s cheek. With the three of them locked together, he was able to get one arm twisted back under Tony’s neck, and the other around Bucky’s ribs. He trailed his fingertips over Bucky’s neck, digging his fingers into the dark curls while he pet Tony’s side just where he knew Tony was the most sensitive. Tony shivered as he nuzzled against Steve and worked one hand through the tentacles to weave their fingers together behind Bucky’s head. He stretched his neck to claim Steve’s mouth in a kiss made somewhat difficult by the angle, but they had some practice at difficult angles. Bucky made a low, needy sound, face titled to watch them wrap their tongues together.

 _‘S been so damn long since the last time I was touched,_ he said in a desperate kind of confession, _Or even felt this…_ He arched back and opened his mouth once more for the tentacle prodding at his cheek.

 _Need?_ Tony supplied. Bucky’s only answer was a jerk of his hips into Steve’s.

Steve understood that. For almost two years after he was taken out of the ice, the most physical contact he had was getting thrown around by the villain of the week, sparring with Thor, Tony’s careful and infrequent pats on the back through the Iron Man gauntlet. At that point, it wasn’t even a matter of sex. The lack of basic human contact became an obscure kind of pain, like his skin was always too tight, his bones creaking under the pressure of his own flesh. He couldn’t begin to imagine what Bucky went through when those two years was nearly enough to make him beg the colony for contact.

 _Stick around,_ Tony responded, _And you’ll get all the touching you can stand._

 _Not gonna say no to that,_ Bucky admitted, his hips moving in slow circles. For all that the motion was strictly controlled, Steve could feel the faint trembling in his thighs. Leaving Tony’s mouth to be captured by the tentacle winding around his throat, Steve turned back to lay soft kisses down Bucky’s exposed throat. Bucky twitched and shuddered at the touch.

They moved against each other in a cautious rhythm, Steve more than happy to be in the middle as Bucky and Tony explored each other wherever the colony would let them move, arms braced against Steve’s side and chest so they could touch each other in turn. Steve felt the pressure of his twisted posture low in his spine, but it wasn’t an ache yet and the weight of it only made him feel more anxious for touch. He pulled Bucky tighter with the foot pressed into his friend’s back and rocked between them, exhilarated by the press of Tony’s familiar cock against his ass and Bucky’s unfamiliar length nestled against his. It didn’t seem right that anything about Bucky should be unfamiliar to him. Any lingering doubts he had about them going from friends to something more burned away at the realization that this was a natural progression of their relationship, and maybe it would have always happened this way.

Steve felt himself laughing at the sheer absurdity of it and, again, at how strange his life had become. If asked, even just a few months before the colony’s arrival turned things upside down, he never would have said he was the kind of guy who liked being tied up, liked being held down and overpowered. He would have been appalled if someone suggested he might like being in a relationship with more than one person at a time, let alone more than one person at the _same_ time.

 _Want to share with the class?_ Tony asked with just the slightest hint of uncertainty.

_Just strange turns our lives take. I’ve never cared about anyone as much as I care about you two, and somehow I’m lucky enough to have you both in my arms right now, and it’s… surreal._

For a wonder, Tony didn’t seem to know how to respond and Bucky only joined in on his laughter. He arched hard into Steve’s hips, turning his laughter into a low whine. The colony loved laughter more than any sound with the possible exception of Korean pop music, and it hummed happily, flickering bright gold around them. A bright cerulean tentacle eased through the press of limbs surrounding them, brushed over Steve’s face in a loving caress, and squirmed down his body. The tentacle’s cool length made him twitch and arch as it moved, detouring briefly to tickle him on the way down. He tracked the movement of the tentacle distantly, his attention primarily captured by Tony pulling Bucky’s warm right hand over to Steve’s nipple.

 _Play with that for a bit and he’ll make the filthiest noises, I swear,_ Tony instructed. Steve felt prickly heat spread over his collarbone, but Bucky flicked an experimental fingertip over the tight nub and he lost whatever he meant to say in the noise that escaped his throat.

 _Told you,_ Tony said smugly.

 _Didn’t know his voice went that high,_ Bucky responded in a conversational tone, trapping Steve’s nipple between thumb and forefinger and twisting sharply.

_I know, right? I keep meaning to record it and make it my text message alert._

Steve’s eyes went wide. “Tony, don’t you-!” He cut himself off with a strangled noise. The cerulean tentacle pressed a broad fold against his entrance at the exact moment Bucky squirmed forward enough to seal his mouth to Steve’s chest. His body reduced to nothing but electric shocks and _need_. His skin was on fire with it, over sensitive, every slide of Tony’s hand down his side, the shock of Bucky’s teeth grazing his chest, and the unfathomable slickness of the tentacle between his legs ramping him up nearly to the point of pain. He thrashed weakly, conscious of making noises and not sure if they were words or just sounds.

Tony caught on first and reached down to slide his fingers under the tentacle to press against Steve’s entrance.

 _Huh. Haven’t encountered a self-lubricating tentacle before,_ he commented, voice part mischief and part curiosity.

 _Colony adapts,_ the colony responded smugly.

 _Tony approves of colony adapting,_ Tony told it, sinking his teeth into the swell of Steve’s shoulder. It was all enough to drive him mad and he couldn’t understand how Tony was carrying on a conversation, was able to form syllabus into meaningful sentences, and he wanted to complain about it, except when he tried it came out in three languages.

“Speaking in tongues?” Bucky murmured against his chest, and Steve told him to shut up, but he wasn’t sure if he said it in English or French.

The colony made any attempts to figure it out moot by sliding a tentacle into his mouth the next time he opened it. The familiar flavor of cherry chapstick and cloves made him moan, even as the tentacle pressing slowly into his body warped it into something approaching a scream. The colony loved the vibration of his voice and shivered in response, and that did – interesting things. He bucked hard, not sure if he was trying to shove forward into Bucky’s body, or push back into Tony’s, but it didn’t matter much. The colony pulled them tightly together, preventing further casual exploration while it opened Steve’s body up. Being held still was a unique torture in the face of so much stimulation. Steve kept up a running litany of curses that were unintelligible around the tentacle, but made the colony hum with pleasure.

When the tentacle pushing relentlessly against his prostate withdrew, Steve nearly went white with frantic denial, but Tony hushed him softly and took the colony’s place. He was so much larger than the slender tentacle and Steve fell silent as he rode through the burn of it, holding his breath against any of a number of sounds clamoring at his chest.

“Every time…” Tony panted against his neck. “So fucking tight.”

“Healing is good for something,” Bucky answered on Steve’s behalf. His eyes were so intense as he watched them that his gaze felt like a physical weight. It made Steve’s face burn to have an audience for this, but not as much in embarrassment as he would have thought. He squirmed restlessly, forcing Tony the last inch to breech the ring of muscle. Steve released his breath in a controlled exhale through his nose and swallowed around the tentacle moving gently in his mouth.

Tony trailed his fingers down Steve’s ribs and found Bucky’s cock pressed against his. He wrapped a strong hand around both of them, and the colony joined him a moment later to create a tight channel. It was entirely too much and Steve was surprised he didn’t come at the first smooth thrust of Tony’s body pulling him apart. Bucky nearly did – half a dozen strokes and he sank his teeth hard into Steve’s shoulder as he came undone. He shouted in wordless exaltation, the sound muffled against Steve’s flesh, and slick warmth flooded the tunnel formed by Tony’s fist and the broad tentacle wrapped around them. Bucky twitched and spasmed, his breath coming in sobbing hitches through his teeth. The dull ache of Bucky’s teeth set a counterpoint to the motion of Tony’s body, the smooth thrust and withdraw that increased in speed as Steve’s encouraging noises climbed in volume.

Steve’s toes curled in, and tingling heat flashed through his body as he reached a peak. He choked briefly on the limb in his mouth and it withdrew just enough for him to suck in a breath as he shuddered with aftershocks. Tony followed him a moment later and they all collapsed in a sated heap.

 _Definitely okay with the touching,_ Bucky said, tentatively, into their shared headspace as he drifted off slowly to sleep.

The tentacles holding them secure relaxed as they relaxed, and Steve was able to move enough to uncurl his spine. His low back gave the slightest twitch of annoyance at the athletic activity while twisted, but whatever minor damage he’d done healed so quickly that he barely registered the short pulse of pain. He rolled his shoulders to get the blood flowing again and pulled Tony and Bucky into his chest. Bucky didn’t even stir, but Tony was still wide awake. He moved so that the arc reactor wouldn’t dig into Steve’s ribs and reached over to push Bucky’s hair back from his face.

“Love you,” Steve told him sleepily. “And still not leaving.”

If Tony responded, Steve fell asleep before he heard it.


	8. Chapter Seven

They gathered around the conference table with the door open so the colony could keep tentacles wrapped around them. As the Chitauri grew ever closer to Earth, the colony was less and less willing to let them go. They hadn’t left the penthouse in two days and relied on Sam and Pepper to liaise with the outside world wherever they couldn’t do it over the video conference. Bucky, looking pale and tired, stayed in the nest most of the time, but he sat beside Tony at the table with half a dozen tentacles wrapped around him. He didn’t speak much, and there were times when he did something without waiting for permission and then looked at Steve in panic before he remembered that he didn’t _need_ permission. If Steve didn’t have a thousand other things to worry about, he would have been brokenhearted over those moments.

Holding a tablet in hand, Tony flipped through dozens of fuzzy images. The Chitauri were visible on the satellite cameras, and would arrive in an estimated twenty-three hours. The fleet was even bigger than they originally estimated based off of NASA images. What they still couldn’t find was any evidence of the colony.

“That’s a lot of scaly alien assholes,” Clint observed after a long stretch of uncomfortable silence.

“Eight units of Asgardian soldiers will arrive on this plane in but six hours,” Thor said, as if it tipped the scale in their favor, but even he looked tight and drawn as he took in the sheer scale of the invasion bound for the planet.

 _Baby,_ Tony tried again, addressing the colony. It didn’t understand endearments and was constantly baffled by Tony’s nicknames. _Snugglebear, where is the colony?_

 _Colony is here,_ it answered. It was confused and frustrated with the question, which each of them had asked in some variation probably a dozen times a piece. Its agitation translated to a ripple in the tentacles holding them tightly. Steve was tugged toward the door in his rolling chair and stood up to put a stop to the motion.

 _We know that you are here,_ Steve tried again, _But where is the greater colony?_

 _Colony is here,_ the colony repeated forcefully. It squeeze Steve tightly and lifted him a few inches off the carpet to wrap more coils around his chest.

_We don’t understand-_

_Wait!_ Tony interrupted. He pushed out of his chair and scrambled up on top of the table, sending papers and pens flying. Standing in the middle of the table, Tony caught still images off the satellite feeds. “There!” He crowed, and then caught another and another. “There, and there! Look!” Excited, he practically danced on the table as he caught more images, dozens of them.

“Tony, help us out – I don’t see what you’re looking at,” Steve said, stepping up next to him more gingerly and searching the images for a clue. He couldn’t see anything, and most of them didn’t even show the Chitauri at all, just endless stretches of space broken up by pinprick stars, the curve of the moon, the distant spark of the sun.

“You seriously can’t see that?” Tony scoffed. He dragged his finger across one image, drawing a blue line around a faint shadow crossing over the left corner of the screen. When no one jumped in understanding, he sighed impatiently and started circling more shadows. Steve stared at the screens in blank incomprehension.

It was Bruce who sucked in a startled breath and scrambled up on the table with them. “I see them!” Bruce said excitedly. “It makes sense. The colony’s understanding of light is unparalleled, I can’t believe we didn’t think of it before. It must be bending the light around to-”

“Actual cloaking, no shit,” Tony affirmed. “Suck on that, you Klingon assclowns!” He snickered and kept pulling up images.

“How many?” Bruce asked, eyes flashing over the screens.

“A lot,” Tony answered. “I’m not even through fifty percent of the operational satellites. There are… oh, thousand-seventy or so that aren’t mine.”

Bemused and getting a headache, Steve asked, “Want to share with the class?”

“The colony _is_ here,” Bruce said, since Tony was far too deep in his image search to bother with something as unnecessary as speaking. “The colony communicates through an electrical field – we’ve discussed that before, right?” Bruce glanced briefly at Steve for confirmation.

“Like the human nervous system.”

Tony snorted. “The human nervous system is a like a switchboard compared to the colony’s super computer.”

“Yes, like the human nervous system, except much more advanced, much more sensitive. It’s a field that allows the colony to ‘see’ like an electrical version of echolocation, as well as to pick up emotions and sensation from us – which is why it describes pain as ‘bad flash’ and pleasure as ‘happy lights.’ Right?”

Steve nodded again, frowning at the hundreds of tiny images filling up the screens hanging above the conference table. They kept getting smaller and smaller to make room for the others.

“The colony’s understanding of light and energy is – so far beyond us. So far that I can’t even fathom what we _don’t_ know. The colony is bending light around its body, probably by creating a field that the light would go around instead of through.”

Steve made a frustrated noise. “No one in this room is exactly a slouch in the mental department, doctor, but you’re going to need to put that in solider terms for me.”

“It’s invisible,” Tony snapped, frustrated with all the normal humans and their slow processing times. “The colony is out there, around the planet, has been there for days, but we can’t see it because it’s invisible.”

“Like a Klingon Bird of Prey,” Bruce confirmed.

Steve’s eyes widened. He abruptly remembered watching “Star Trek” and being very disbelieving of a giant ship that could ‘cloak,’ and Bruce’s explanation of how that was possible. The human eye could only perceive things that light reflected off of – if something could make light go _around it_ , the object would be, for all intents and purposes, invisible.

 _The colony is here, and good god, it’s big,_ Tony concluded, awed, as he finally lowered the tablet and stared up at the thousands of images on the screens.

 _Colony is here,_ the colony confirmed, with the equivalent of an eye roll.

“Tony,” Steve breathed, his stomach twisting in sudden panic. “We _cannot_ let the rest of the world know that the colony can be invisible. It would-”

“Not be good,” Tony agreed, nodding. “I’m working on a plan. I just have to hijack over a thousand satellites to do it, without any of those thousand plus satellite’s owners realizing it. It’s going to take a few minutes. Clear out, all of you, get out of my space,” Tony ordered. Steve normally bristled and reminded Tony about things like manners and not treating his teammates like servants, but no one so much as breathed a sound of complaint as they fled the room. “Not you, Bruce, Jesus. I need you.”

Steve and Bruce exchanged identical looks of half exasperation and half fondness as Steve let the colony pull him down from the table and out of the room.

~*~

Steve spent the next six hours trying to hold of various Very Important People demanding to know where their allies were, why they hadn’t shown up with the Chitauri less than a day away, and what the Avengers were planning to do about this, that, and the other thing. The arrival of Thor’s promised reinforcements should have given him a break, but somehow it only caused more calls from irate generals, base commanders, world leaders, and politicians. Who was coordinating with the Asgardian contingent, who was in command of them, where were they going to be, and why was a whole unit in China and there were none in Pakistan? Steve felt like a pinball bouncing back and forth between calls while his team ran interference for him as much as possible.

He did his best not to hover when Tony was in _Save-the-World-with-Science!_ mode, since _hurry up_ , didn’t usually make anyone go any faster and it only led to stress which led to mistakes. But with fifteen hours to go before an invasion force bore down on the planet, Steve finally sent his team to bed, told Jarvis to screen calls and only pass on Pepper, Sam, or Rhodey, and forged into the conference room.

The room was a mess of coffee cups and takeout containers, with papers scattered all over the floor. Steve started picking them up on reflex as he watched what Tony and Bruce were doing. He might has well have been watching the inside of a computer’s brain for all that he understood the lines of code flying across the screens.

“You two need to take a break,” Steve ordered finally. They were both haggard and had the same twitchy air that Steve associated with Tony in a manic phase.

“Not gonna happen, Cap, back off,” Tony said without even looking up. His eyes were wide and unblinking where he stared at the screen, and Steve was frankly alarmed by the number of paper coffee cups littering the room. He grabbed a bag out of the side cupboard and stuffed his handful of cups in before starting around the room to collect the others. He stopped counting at thirteen, because he didn’t want to think about how much of a strain that was putting on Tony’s heart and Bruce’s nerves.

“You’re not going to do anyone any good if you are dead on your feet come tomorrow and we need you both in the fight,” Steve told him patiently.

Tony opened his mouth for what Steve could already tell would be a belligerent retort, but Bruce interrupted to say, “We’re almost done. We’re running final checks now and we’ll be able to leave the programming running for a few hours to get some sleep in about… twenty minutes.”

“What did I tell you about realistic timetables?” Tony asked. His voice was flat and uninflected, but Steve could hear the strain.

“I’m not a Star Trek engineer, Tony,” Bruce argued back calmly. “In fact, I’m not any kind of engineer, so it doesn’t apply to me.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Child.”

“Stamina of an eighteen year-old,” Tony confirmed, but he was too focused on his tablet to give the quip the attention it needed.

Steve decided to stay out of the conversation and he sat down at one end of the table, set an alarm on his phone for twenty-two minutes and leaned back to get a little sleep. Twenty-two minutes was a decent nap for him, and it would help with the pounding pressure behind his eyes.

~*~

The argument woke him before the alarm went off. Steve blinked at Tony and Bruce, mind not awake enough to comprehend the argument itself. Thirty-two seconds later, the loud musical tone of his alarm interrupted them and they turned to him with identical expressions of shock that let Steve know they’d both forgotten he was in the room. Steve turned off the alarm, yawned, and stretched.

“You two finished?”

“We’re not done,” Tony answered, “I just need to do one more-”

“Tony, you are _not_ programing the satellites to play the Laughing Man face on every screen in the world,” Bruce said firmly.

“When am I going to get this chance again-?”

“-We already discussed it and decided that-”

“-No _you_ decided-”

“-You are not going to have a supervillain alter ego.”

Steve blinked. “What? You’ve _talked about_ having a supervillain alter ego?”

“It was a theoretical discussion,” Tony said dismissively. “But seriously, it would harmless and _hilarious_.”

“It would not be harmless,” Bruce objected, “And it wouldn’t be hilarious for long when you jumped to the top of the world’s most wanted list.”

“Pretty sure with a Chitauri invasion coming in-”

Steve grabbed Tony’s chair and spun him around. He put both hands on Tony’s shoulders and repeated, “You’ve talked about having a supervillain alter ego?”

“It was – yes. All of us, and then. The general consensus was, overall, bad plan. So, hey, I need a shower, a toothbrush, and a colony to cuddle with – maybe toothbrush first,” he amended, running his tongue over his front teeth and making a face.

“Tony-“

“Are you seriously going to be so selfish to prevent me from getting some sleep, Steve? When I have three thousand explosive drones to manage tomorrow?”

“Jarvis is managing the drones,” Steve reminded him drily, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m not forgetting about this conversation,” he warned Tony, but at Bruce’s amused laugh-turned-cough, Steve gave in and put an arm around Tony to lead him out of the room.

~*~

They slept together in the nest, curled naked and warm into a pile with the colony moving them periodically into different positions and exchanging the pillows and stuffed animals it cuddled against them. Steve spent most of the night with Bucky laid out across the length of his body, Tony curled up against their sides, with Bruce’s head on his other shoulder. Thor had Jane on his chest, his body so much bigger than hers that he was practically a twin sized bed in relation. He had Phil on one side, and Natasha on the other with Darcy fitted against her chest, and Clint’s head on her stomach. Darcy’s foot occasionally nudged into Steve’s, and he didn’t mind even though it tickled.

Despite being half roused a dozen times in the night, Steve felt rested and recharged by the time the colony nudged them into full wakefulness.

 _Danger comes,_ it explained unhappily, holding them tightly and expressing a clear unwillingness to let them go. _Steve colony stays,_ it tried one more time.

 _It’s our home,_ Phil responded gently before Steve could. _We have to fight to protect it._

With obvious reluctance, the colony separated them and passed them slowly, one-by-one to the outside of the colony. Darcy and Jane would stay with the colony along with a contingent of drones and the tower’s significant defenses to keep them safe. Pepper and Happy would be joining them shortly to wait out the conflict in what was probably the safest building in the city. Tony had already made plans to open the lower levels as a shelter for the citizens who hadn’t been able or willing to evacuate. The current hypothesis is that the Chitauri would focus on major cities and they had done their best to encourage people to leave the cities and take refuge in the country where possible. The mass exodus to the middle of the country had caused its own unique problems that Steve suspected they would be dealing with for a while to come. He stopped himself – planning for the cleanup before the battle was even engaged was nearly as bad as those heartless politicians arguing over spoils and technology.

“Bucky, how are you feeling?” Steve asked while the team retrieved their discarded clothing and quietly redressed to ready themselves for battle.

“I feel like I’m coming with you and if you try to leave me with the colony, I won’t be held responsible for the property damage.” Bucky narrowed his eyes and set his jaw stubbornly.

Steve leveled a look at him. “I wasn’t about to suggest that,” he said, and it was the truth. He _wanted_ to, and he didn’t think he would ever really get over the protectiveness he felt towards his friend. Despite that, he knew that it would be useless and, worse, insulting to tell Bucky he needed to stay behind when he was just as capable of fighting for his planet as Steve.

“Twenty minutes, everyone, and we’ll meet in the hangar. War Machine will meet us up top.” He had offered Bucky the use of his shower downstairs if he wanted privacy the day before, but Bucky chose to ignore him, grinning, as he followed Tony to the master bathroom. Steve didn’t even bother offering again, and Bucky fell into step with Tony without a word. He was expecting some backlash from Bucky on following orders and just hoped that his friend chose to test his new limits after they’d dealt with the Chitauri.

“I have been holding your calls as ordered, Captain Rogers. Would you like to hear your messages?” Jarvis asked as they climbed into the shower and started the faucets.

“No, he would not,” Tony answered for him. When Steve tried to protest, Tony rose to his toes to seal their mouths together. He relaxed back only after the tension drained out of Steve’s shoulders. “It’s just going to be a bunch of scared politicians and military mucks screaming at you for not producing the colony to save their asses. Am I right, Jarvis?”

“Sir is correct,” Jarvis confirmed. “There are eighty-seven new voicemails.”

“I’ll… if any of them are still relevant tomorrow, I’ll take care of it then,” Steve decided, feeling suddenly weary of it. He knew from the moment he decided to go after Bucky the first time, captured behind enemy lines, that he would have to pick up a burden of command and he would not be able to put it down. He knew when he woke from the ice in that fake room with the wrong ball game playing on the bedside radio that a new century didn’t mean he could set aside his responsibilities. But sometimes he wished he could be the kind of person who _would_ make that decision.

“Good choice,” Tony praised.

The three of them came together like it had always been this way between them. There wasn’t time for exploration, and their hands moved across each other’s bodies without intent. They spent a pleasant ten minutes surrounded by mint and steam, and then stepped out to face a battle that would decide the course of human history.

Steve stared at Bucky as he dressed, hating how much he looked like the Winter Soldier in the combat gear with his hair hanging around his face. Bucky glanced up and caught Steve’s interest in the mirror. He hesitated briefly and then picked up a comb and pulled his hair back into a neat tail secured with one of Natasha’s bands. It was such a small thing, but it transformed him utterly. The shadow of stubble on his face, the star painted blue on his left soldier, and his hair neat and out of the way of his eyes all separated him just a little further from Hydra’s created killer. The smile on his lips when he turned to Steve for a reaction pulled at Steve’s chest and he nodded.

~*~

With his suit on and faceplate down, Tony looked a little like a crazy person as his hands moved through holographic displays that no one else could see.

 _Okay, my tentacular lovely,_ Tony said after several minutes of silent conducting. _When I give you the signal, the colony needs to stop bending light. Just like we talked about last night._

 _Colony reflects light,_ the colony confirmed by way of agreement.

Tony’s arms lifted like he really _was_ preparing to conduct a symphony. Through the comms, Steve heard him draw in an unsteady breath, and then his hands smashed together, the metal clanging jarringly in the echoing space.

_Now!_

Outside the open hangar doors, the pre-dawn gray of the sky flashed a searing white gold. The pulse lasted only a fraction of a second, but Steve had to blink several times to clear the spots from his eyes while his team yelled at Tony for not warning them.

_Brighter than I expected, sorry._

“Um… you guys better come look at this,” Rhodey interrupted numbly. Still snarling at Tony, the team walked through the hangar doors to stand on the roof of Stark Tower.

“My God,” Phil breathed.

Hovering over the city was a field of glowing tentacles stretching to the horizon, each as big around a skyscraper, undulating softly in the morning light. To Steve it was beautiful, but he could imagine the reactions of the unsuspecting masses and swallowed hard.

“Well… Colony is here,” Clint noted.

“This subcolony alone stretches from Philly to Chicago,” Tony said softly, voice reverent, but containing a note of worry. The colony may be their savior, but it was too alien, looked too much like a nightmare to someone who didn’t know how amazing and beautiful it was. The world would not respond well to this newest reminder that they were not alone in the wide universe.

 _Don’t pick anyone up,_ Steve reminded the colony.

 _No connections,_ the colony agreed with a sigh of regret. Steve shuddered, imagining the colony swooping down to form connections with the seven plus billion people on the planet and how terrifyingly bad of an idea that would be.

The silence lasted only a couple minutes before every single one of their phones started to scream into the early morning air. Steve listened to Fury’s ringtone for a few seconds before giving into the inevitable and picking up the phone. Just because he was spending too much time with Tony, he answered by saying, “Didn’t I say it was a good idea to be the friendly aliens?”

“Don’t fucking pull that _I told you so_ bullshit on me right now, Rogers, I swear I will nuke your tower if you piss me off today.”

Despite the situation, Steve smiled. All around him, his team started fielding calls from their allies.

~*~

“Why can’t they attack Tokyo once in a while? Why is it always here?” Clint complained as the main force of the Chitauri invasion dropped right on top of New York. The colony’s appearance hadn’t slowed them down much, but it was definitely doing a good job of keeping the majority of the force from reaching the ground. It was a good thing because the small percentage that passed the colony’s grasp was ten times the size of the original invasion nearly three years before.

“We did kinda kick their asses last time. They’d probably like some of their own back,” Tony answered as he broke the sound barrier around the Empire State Building with a hoard of Chitauri following along like a cartoon swarm of bees. Thor was parked once more on top of the Empire State Building with his hammer held up, his body a lightning rod as he turned the New York sky into a mass of barely controlled lightning. Steve gave up asking them to keep the chatter down to a minimum as his own workload reached the realm of overwhelming. He and Bucky were on the streets, coordinating with ground crews where they could and engaging the enemy where they landed. Only two troop carriers had made it through the colony so far, but each one carried dozens of Chitauri, and each Chitauri was a nightmare all on its own. Natasha and Clint were three blocks away handling the second drop, and the Hulk was merrily doing battle with the carrier itself.

 _Hulk smash dragon!_ He howled, dragging one carrier to the street a block down from Steve and Bucky’s position. The ground trembled with the force of the impact and Hulk roared in triumph.

 _Get the other one, Hulk!_ Steve ordered as the Hulk started jumping on the dead dragon’s head, pounding its skull into mush. The Hulk bellowed at Steve defiantly, but after one more contemptuous kick to the great alien’s head, bounded off to attack the other carrier.

“Reports, Coulson,” Steve called during a temporary lull in the fighting as he and Bucky chased down a retreating group of Chitauri foot soldiers.

“Our allies in the city are holding their own so far, the colony has kept the invasion off the African continent entirely, the helicarrier is en route to intercept a strike force that passed the colony at the southern pole and is headed for South America. Shanghai, Tokyo, and Singapore in East Asia and London, Berlin, and Madrid are under fire in Europe, the joint air force is keeping the invasion isolated to the coasts. San Francisco was hit hard by a dying carrier – it took out the Golden Gate Bridge on the way down, with significant civilian casualties, but the X-Men are handling the troops on the ground. Los Angeles and Las Vegas are both under limited fire, and so is Chicago,” Phil summed up quickly. “It looks like we’re getting the worst of it.”

“Copy,” Steve said tightly so he didn’t have to think about the bridge going under. He could clearly imagine that it would have been packed end-to-end with civilians trying to flee the city, and had to put a stop to the image before it morphed into watching the ice fly up to meet him. They finally caught up to the retreating group of foot soldiers and Steve let fly with his shield to clear a path for Bucky, who waited until it hit the first alien, and then used it as a springboard to launch himself into the knot of Chitauri. Steve had only a second to take in the effortless killer his friend had become – Bucky was not a soldier anymore, he was a force of nature, a hunting panther with steel talons, all grace and power.

“Head’s up, Cap!” Tony called. Steve ducked automatically without bothering to turn around. “Want a lift, Bucky?”

Iron Man blew by Steve, snatched Bucky up by his extended metal arm, and carried him the length of the street for a gun run. Bucky, looking wild and pleased, held a machine gun crooked against his hip and fired indiscriminately into the horde as they passed. Tony dropped him at the end of the street and fired his repuslors to gain some altitude on the mess of flying Chitauri chasing after him. Steve took the opportunity to fling his shield at one, and watched in satisfaction as it lost control and took out a dozen of its closely-packed compatriots on the way down, and then landed right on the main mass of regrouping foot soldiers. Steve managed to retrieve his shield just in time to avoid the resulting explosion taking out his face. Sam dive-bombed the rearmost flyer as it passed Steve’s position and steered the craft into the unprotected backs of the creatures in front of it. He whooped and took off with own following a moment later.

When the initial explosion cleared, Bucky stood triumphant on the other side of the burning corpses, covered in green blood and holding a Chitauri head in his bloody left hand. He glanced up and chucked the head at a passing flyer with stunning accuracy. The flyer went flailing into the side of the building and Bucky jogged back to Steve’s side.

“Almost like the old days,” Bucky commented, grinning. His face was streaked in green blood and it gave him a feral aspect. Steve resisted wiping it away and returning his friend’s fierce smile. The call came in for another drop of soldiers, and they turned for the west to meet them.

~*~

An Asgardian unit found Loki over Germany. Thor’s lightning faltered briefly and Steve hated that he had to rein Thor back in rather than telling him to just go. The colony had suffered significant damage the hour before and they were nearly overwhelmed with the influx of Chitauri flyers.

“ _Find that godamned sonovabitch mothership!”_ Tony snarled into the comms. It was strange to hear him raise his voice, even if it wasn’t by much – Tony’s voice, even when he was panicked, even when he was flying into the abyss rarely, changed in pitch or volume, but none of them took the injury to the colony well. Tony’s drones were working overtime, hunting Chitauri in packs, finding the largest concentrations of them and detonating.

“Carrier incoming!” Clint shouted from his position on the top of the Chrysler Building.

“I have it, sir,” Jarvis responded, his voice as smooth and measured as it ever was, but Steve had the impression that Jarvis liked being out in the field with them. If they weren’t fighting of an invasion, Steve would tease him about it because he liked the way the AI responded when Steve treated him like a person.

A V formation of drones whizzed past Steve and Bucky, laying down fire as they zoomed overhead and taking out a swathe of foot soldiers. The resulting chaos gave Steve a pause he needed badly and dropped to one knee so he could rest the tip of his shield on the pavement. Bucky crouched next to him, winded, his left arm draped over the tire of an overturned car. They craned their necks and watched as the formation of drones scattered to engage the carrier and, to Steve’s great pleasure, the vanguard flew straight into the monster’s month. It was like one of those moments in the old cartoons where the bad guy swallows a bomb, blinks, burps, and then – BOOM!

Bucky pumped his right arm in the air as the dragon dropped with all its cargo, flaming, into the bay. A ragged cheer went up on the comms and Steve tried not to show how worried he was by how tired his team sounded. The battle was engaged more than eight hours ago, and even Steve’s strength was flagging.

“Great job, Jarvis. Hey, did you get any readings while you were in the belly of the beast?” Tony asked, his voice back to a normal cadence and volume. Steve pinpointed him leading a swarm of flyers right into the path of Thor’s storm.

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis answered with a faint sigh.

“Cool. Store that somewhere Bruce can find it when he’s being Bruce again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jarvis, I’m sending you coordinates,” Phil cut in. “I have the mothership.”

“Thank _God_ ,” Tony groused.

Steve didn’t respond, but he agreed with the sentiment wholeheartedly, and wished Tony’s drones good luck and godspeed as Jarvis pulled out three hundred of the little bots from the reserve around the tower and took to the east on a sharp climb.

“That’s great news, but we can’t relax yet. What’s everyone’s status?” His team called in one-by-one, only Natasha’s line remaining silent. She was knocked off of a flyer forty-five minutes before, and though the Hulk caught her on the way down, she was still unconscious in the bunker with Phil. Steve didn’t know how badly she was injured, and hated the Chitauri even more for not only harming his colony, but preventing him from going to her.

“Hulk big dragon all dead!” The Hulk cried angrily from the bay. While the rest of the team was flagging under the strain, the Hulk was positively energized by the battle and enjoyed playing with the carriers more than anything. He was obviously insulted that someone else took one of them out without him, and for once Steve didn’t mind when he threw a tantrum, as his tantrum launched him right into the main mass of flyers doing their damnedest to shoot Tony of the air. He used them as launching pads like a terrifyingly oversized toad on lillypads. It would have been funny if it wasn’t also something that would probably visit Steve in his next nightmare.

“Break times’ over,” Bucky announced, pointing over the car at an approaching squad of Chitauri. Steve sighed and watched in concern as Bucky struggled to lift his metal arm off the support of the car. “Let’s get back to it,” he said with a tired grin, and they launched over the car to the surprise the soldiers.

~*~

The lightning cut out the moment the Chitauri invaders fell lifeless the ground from the sacrifice of two hundred and seventy three drones. Steve crumpled to the pavement, his knees landing right on top of a foot soldiers’ chest, and he didn’t even care enough to struggle back to his feet. Bucky crashed down next to him, back to a miraculously upright light pole, chest heaving, left arm limp at his side.

“My brother?” Thor demanded immediately, anxious, voice deep and crackling with rage and impatience.

“Coulson?” Steve prompted, not wanting to keep his teammate waiting a moment longer.

“One second.” Expectant silence fell over the comms. “He fell from the air at the same time as the Chitauri. He was caught by Nightcrawler and turned over to the ranked Asgardian on site. He’s unconscious, but alive. They’re holding him in Stuttgart.”

“Go,” Steve said, but he didn’t need to – Thor was already in the air, a fading streak of lightning disappearing over the eastern horizon. He didn’t know how Thor could still lift his hammer after holding the storm for more than nine hours, but he wasn’t about to suggest that he take a break before going after his brother.

“I think…” Bucky said after a few moments of silence. “I think I’m just gonna stay here for a little bit.”

Steve considered it, and then said, “Me too.”

~*~

Natasha regained consciousness by the time they made it back to the tower, and didn’t give so much as a mumble of protest when the colony reached out and took her right out of Phil’s arms. Jane and Darcy appeared from the middle of the nest and threw themselves at the first bodies they encountered – which ended up being Phil and Clint. Steve surrendered an exhausted Bruce to the colony and resisted crawling in himself only because he really wanted a shower. Tony looked like he was more than half asleep in the suit – he refused to take it off in the jet, and Steve got the impression that it was all that was keeping him upright. Happy and Pepper hurried around the breakfast bar. Happy barely caught Sam as his knees buckled. Steve tightened his arm around Bucky’s ribs, but he wasn’t sure if he was supporting Bucky or if Bucky was supporting him.

“Why are you here instead of a hospital?” Pepper demanded, sliding her lithe body under Bucky’s heavy left arm and bracing her shoulder into his. She looked shorter than Steve expected her to be, and for one nonsensical moment, Steve thought that he’d grown again, but then realized she wasn’t wearing her heels.

“The hospitals have enough to deal with,” Tony said, so exhausted he barely got the words out. He was definitely slumping in the suit, which was battered and dented, even more than it had been when he fell out of the Chitauri portal at the end of the last invasion. Steve narrowed his eyes at the joints and tried to figure out if it would even come off at all. He wasn’t really looking forward to peeling Tony out of it, not with the way his arms were burning and his hands twitched involuntarily with tired muscle spasms.

“Come on,” Pepper ordered after a second to contemplate that statement when no one really wanted to contemplate it. Tony had stationed hundreds of drones at the city’s hospitals to protect them and, for a wonder, the hospitals all escaped unscathed. The tower, as well, was untouched, and the automatic defenses played no small part in managing the invasion. As promised, he’d opened the lower levels to civilians taking refuge from the fighting, and the lower lobby had been turned into a medical bay.

“Steve, start walking.” Pepper’s voice was sharp and Steve realized that he must have zoned out. He nodded, but it took him another second to start moving. Between him and Pepper, Bucky did his best to stay upright, but Steve ended up more than half carrying him. Pepper was stronger than she looked and at least helped to keep Bucky stable. “Tony, come on!” Pepper called back when she realized that Tony wasn’t following. “Jarvis, get Tony’s suit moving to the bathroom.”

Steve glanced back and realized that Tony was asleep, slouched uncomfortably against the chestpiece. The suit started to move, clomping after them, and Steve was vaguely aware of Darcy and Jane towing Phil and Clint in their wake. Pepper dragged them into the shower in their clothes, and Happy managed to get Tony conscious just long enough to get him out of the suit and onto the bench. Steve wasn’t sure how to handle Pepper undressing him, but she had him naked and seated beside Tony before he could figure it out, so Steve just slumped back against the wall and let it all happen.

He would never recall the exact sequence of events later, but somehow they all ended up clean and back in the nest. Bucky sighed as the colony took hold of his left arm and wrapped it up to take all the weight, Tony nestled into Bucky’s exposed chest, and Steve tried hard not to notice all the bruises and cuts covering his teammates’ bodies. He fell asleep with Clint wrapped around his chest and Bruce curled against his back.

~*~

Steve woke to a faintly familiar voice gasping, “I _tried_ , I couldn’t – I tried to stop them. I tried to die and it just didn’t-” Broken laughter. “I tried and tried and tried, and it just wouldn’t _take_.”

Opening his eyes was difficult, but not as difficult as he would have expected. He blinked, and was confused to see that it was still dark out. His internal clock was rarely wrong, but it was also very confused by the depth of night glaring through the windows.

“Captain, you are awake at last,” Thor said with great relief.

Steve turned his head. He wasn’t so much in the nest as on top of it, but coiled up in tentacles the same way the colony would hold an injured limb. He was warm and comfortable and groaned at the gentle constriction of the nurse appendage as it syphoned away hurts. When he finally spotted Thor, he was momentarily startled to see him cradling a lengthy form on the couch. It took Steve an embarrassingly long minute to realize it was _Loki_. And, Jesus, he looked _bad_. He was skinny to the point of looking skeletal, skin so pale it looked faintly blue, hair lank and dull.

 _Let me go,_ Steve requested. The colony balked stubbornly. _Let me go, please,_ he tried again. _I heal fast, remember?_

 _Steve colony very bad flash,_ the colony argued mulishly. Steve looked around to see that the team was still cuddled into the colony with him, all wrapped up in nursing tentacles. Natasha was barely visible through the pile of tentacles looped around her.

_I need to talk to Thor._

_Thor needs nest. Stubborn._ It was obviously distressed over Thor’s unwillingness to submit to treatment, and Steve suspected that had more to do with the shuddering mass of too-thin limbs held to his chest than a desire to not be nursed.

_Let me go, and I will talk to him about being in the nest._

The colony considered this carefully. It didn’t understand the concept of a hierarchy exactly, but it realized that Steve was the ‘high individual’ in their human colony. Finally, flaring a rainbow of colors that ranged from hopeful to annoyed, it uncoiled the nursing tentacle from Steve’s body and pushed him carefully upright. His customary tentacle wound lovingly around his waist as he sat beside Thor. The Aesir was stripped of his chestpiece, but otherwise still wearing the same gear he fought in, his red cloak wrapped about Loki’s thin shoulders. Loki huddled closer to Thor as Steve approached, tucking his face into his brother’s hair and trembling in fright.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Steve told him gently, his heart giving a pang to see the once proud Loki reduced to an injured animal, like seeing a majestic great beast cowering in fear of a human’s fist.

“My brother believes you will punish him,” Thor explained raggedly. His voice was thin and weak, his eyes heavily lidded, but he held tightly to his brother. Steve believed that he would fight the entire team if he thought they were going to take Loki away.

Steve examined what he could see of Loki’s face – the sharp cut of a too-prominent cheekbone, a sunken stretch of cheek, a livid bruise turning his jawline mottled purple and black. He waved his fingers to get Loki’s attention. One exhausted green eye turned to him, half-lidded and strangely reserved.

“I’m going to ask you a question and I need you to be honest with me,” Steve said gently. “I’m going to believe what you tell me.” That wasn’t perhaps the best admission to someone like Loki, who allegedly lied as easily as most people breathed, but Steve didn’t have the energy for an interrogation and Loki didn’t look like he was up for anything more strenuous than simply existing. “Were you with the Chitauri willingly?”

Loki’s eye widened briefly in surprise. The suspicion began percolating in Steve’s mind from the night Clint joined the colony and they were all treated to a brief peek of his time with Loki and Chitauri. He remembered the manic look in Loki’s eyes, the strange feverish quality of his skin, and, even then, thought that this was not a man who looked well in the head.

When Loki didn’t answer, Steve rephrased, “Did you willingly aid the Chitauri in attacking Earth?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Loki hissed angrily, voice low and filled with hatred. The sound seemed to startle him and he recoiled physically, brows drawing together. His gaze returned to Steve. “Yes. The first time… I can’t. I can’t remember why I wanted it, but I think, yes, I think it was my idea… maybe.” His expression grew more and more confused as he spoke. “There was just… so much pain and I was _so angry_.” He began to shake. “I don’t remember why I cared, but I wanted it, you pitiful humans on your knees.” He curled tighter into Thor’s side, looking vulnerable and lost and very young. “Why would I want that?”

Steve swallowed hard and tried to stop drawing comparisons between Loki and Bucky, but he couldn’t help himself, because he heard the same lost pleading Loki’s voice that he heard in Bucky’s. “This invasion… was that your idea as well?” Steve asked gently.

Loki made a noise like a wounded animal and turned his face into Thor’s chest. “No,” he whimpered. “No, I told them it wouldn’t work. I told them the Tessaract wouldn’t be here any longer. I told them that there was no profit it in, but they wanted Earth for its resources and they needed slaves. I tried to stop them, I tried.” His breath sped up until he was nearly hyperventilating. “I tried to warn you, and I tried to just… just _stop breathing_ , but they wouldn’t let me, and they came anyway, and I wouldn’t fight so they… they….” Loki’s narrative devolved into panicked gasps. Thor wrapped him up in his arms, tears streaming down his expressive face as he rocked his brother and tried to calm him.

“Do not take him away from me,” Thor pleaded, turning his wet blue eyes to Steve.

“No one is going to take him away from you,” Steve said carefully. He wasn’t sure exactly what Loki’s story was, but this shivering wreck of a man was not the same arrogant tyrant who turned the world upside down three years before. Steve reached out very carefully and put a hand on Loki’s shoulder. His heart wrenched when Loki flinched back with a strangled whimper.

Steve withdrew his hand and turned back to Thor. “Let’s get you two cleaned up and fed.”

 _Thor needs nest,_ the colony argued when they shifted to leave the couch, Thor still refusing the broad golden tentacle waiting with barely concealed anxiousness to wrap him up.

 _Thor is not going to go to the nest without his brother,_ Steve told the colony gently.

The colony considered this. _Brother is Steve colony?_

 _His name is Loki,_ Steve said, unsure of how to answer the last question. He didn’t have it in him to turn away Thor’s brother, but he didn’t know if Loki would appreciate being claimed, or if the rest of the team would be on board with having Loki in their heads. He was especially worried about Clint on that matter, who still woke screaming from nightmares of his time under Loki’s control.

 _Brother Loki is Steve colony?_ The colony persisted, holding him on the couch when he tried to get up again. Thor watched him very carefully, eyes lidded and cautious in a way Steve had never seen before.

Steve firmed his mouth and parroted Tony’s words to Thor. “Loki is Thor colony. Colony keeps Thor warm. Colony keeps Loki warm. He’s one of yours, so he’s one of ours.”

The tension drained out of Thor on a sob and he tightened his hold on his brother, drawing Loki close to him and hiding his face in the man’s lank hair.

 _Of course Loki is Steve colony,_ said a new voice, sleepy and annoyed when the colony repeated its question for the third time, lit up in bright orange and trembling in anxiety. Steve looked over at Clint in shock. _But he better take a shower before he comes in here, because yuck._

 _Stop yapping,_ Tony added. _Just go put him in the shower and come back to the nest._

 _Thank you, my friends,_ Thor said with great feeling.

In his arms, Loki started to squirm. “I can’t breathe you giant child!” he snarled, but there was no heat in it, and his voice trembled faintly in mingled exhaustion and fear.

“Come on,” Steve said again. “Shower, clean clothes, food. I’ll tell you about the colony.”


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, finally! When I first started posting this, the plan was to have it all out before the New Year. I didn't realize how close I was going to be cutting it, but made it under the wire - go me!
> 
> Thank you everyone for hanging in with me for this strange journey. Please see end notes for some important messages from your author *cheeky smile*
> 
> I will shortly be posting more extensive end notes on my tumblr and I welcome you all to come visit and converse or lurk as you see fit!
> 
> http://lightshadowverisimilitude.tumblr.com/

People started streaming back into the city and the cleanup effort was underway immediately after the Chitauri all dropped dead in the streets. Steve and his team stayed in the nest for four days, sleeping a lot, submitting to the determined ministrations of the nursing tentacles, and cautiously welcoming their newest member. For his part, Loki was troublingly quiet. He flat refused to communicate in their headspace to the point that he wouldn’t even acknowledge he’d heard them. Steve suspected there was a story behind his unwillingness that would make Steve very mad someday, but he didn’t press for it. Loki oscillated between complete stony silence and vicious snapping retorts aloud, but he never shrugged out of his brother’s touch, and he collapsed in a trembling heap the first time Clint put an arm around him. Bruce and Natasha both terrified him, he went white whenever he looked at Phil, he was wary of Tony, but found a kinship with Bucky that Steve encouraged.

On the fifth day, Pepper finally demanded they all get up and get dressed before the world decided that they’d actually been killed and SHIELD was covering it up. “And they would all riot, and that would be the end of human civilization as we know it,” she finished. “So get up, put your uniforms on, and get downstairs. Press conference in twenty minutes, and I swear if you are drunk when you get there, Tony Stark, you will not like me in twenty two minutes. Go!”

She was kind of terrifying, and they all went while she clapped her hands in sharp bursts of noise to get them moving faster. Loki and Bucky both stayed behind, pressed back into the folds of the colony and obviously trying to make themselves look smaller.

“You heard the lady,” Steve said with a broad gesture.

When neither of them moved, Tony added, “You really don’t want to see her in dragon mode. Really. It’s… I have nightmares, seriously.” Pepper smacked him on the back of the head, but Steve just took his hand in a steady grip and squeezed gently, because Tony wasn’t actually exaggerating.

~*~

Steve dutifully read the statement prepared for him by Pepper on the cue cards, but when he was done reading the well-drafted speech he set the cards aside. He resisted the suited “bodyguards” (nevermind that if a fight broke out it would Steve protecting _them_ ) when they tried to move him.

“So that’s the official speech,” Steve told the reporters once the security stepped away. “But I have something to add.” He reached up and took off his cowl. He ran his fingers through his hair to put it into something like order and offered the gathered press a smile. “And not as Captain America, but just as Steve Rogers.” He drew a deep breath and ignored Pepper’s unhappy grimace. He knew that she’d pushed him up front mostly because he was the least likely to deviate from the script, but she took a breath and waved her hand in a ‘go on’ gesture as if her displeasure would have stopped him.

“I am proud today to stand up here before you,” Steve said into the cameras. “Four days ago, the world engaged in battle, and for the very first time, we were all fighting for a common cause. For the _very first_ time in human history, we stood united as a species. And though the cost was great... far greater than any of us ever wanted, we have been shown what we can accomplish as a race. We have friends among the stars,” Steve said, looking up to where he could barely see the outline of a massive tentacle through the clouds, and then glanced over at Thor, standing proud and straight next to his brother, “And we can achieve so much more working together.

“You all know the numbers of brave souls who gave their lives so our species would survive the night – human, Asgardian, and colony. I won’t repeat those numbers. Instead, I’ll give you a new number – Seven point two. Seven point two billion people are still alive today.” Steve drew in a breath. “The days and weeks and months that follow will test us. We have a lot of work ahead of us, again. New York has been through this a time or two,” Steve added with a smile that the reporters responded to with titters of laughter. If there was anything that Steve knew about New York, it was that the city took pride in being a phoenix, rising bigger and better from the ashes. “So we’ve got to lead by example, and we’ve got to extend our hand to help London, Madrid, Shanghai, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and all the other cities hit by the invasion. We have a chance here, today, to set aside greed and personal gain, to work towards a better human condition. It’s one of the best chances we’re ever going to get – maybe the last one.

“I vote that a year from now we do not let this invasion define our anniversary as nothing more than a day of great tragedy. I vote that a year from now we stand together and say that this invasion was the start of something better. I hope I’m not the only one that votes that way.”

Steve straightened away from his mic. Silence reined for a moment, and then he heard the muted hiss of Tony’s helmet drawing away. Tony stepped up next to him on the podium. “I’ll cast my vote for that,” he said.

“And I,” added Thor, stepping to Steve’s other side. The entire team joined them, standing in one line, and Steve was beyond words when he saw Bucky and Loki right there with him. The moment hung, and then wild applause roared from the crowd gathered behind the police barrier. Tony reached out and took Steve’s hand, holding him gently through the gauntlet. Steve squeezed tight enough that Tony would feel it and then reached out for Thor’s giant palm.

~*~

The greater colony left sixteen days after the battle. Steve was sad to see it go and wished that it would stay longer while it healed, but he knew that the world’s gratitude for the colony’s help would quickly morph into fear and suspicion if the colony remained, so he didn’t argue. Despite his speech, which – much to his mortification – played nearly day across the world, he knew that human nature wouldn’t change drastically enough to prevent them turning on something they didn’t understand. The subcolony in their living room held them tighter than night, and Steve knew it was an impending goodbye that made his chest ache. They spent their days split up, helping clear away the debris and the alien bodies, doing their best to gather Chitauri technology to keep it from ending up in the wrong hands. Phil held back the hoard of journalists clamoring for interviews until the situation stabilized, taking on the role of Avengers press liaison easy as breathing.

There were a lot of things about the world in the twenty-first century that disappointed Steve, but he was heartened by the world’s reaction to the invasion. He didn’t doubt that the politicians were scheming behind the scenes, but the nations of the world unilaterally got off their asses and helped clean up the mess left behind by the invasion. Even the Saudi government, unable to ignore the invasion after a carrier landed right on top of Medina, roused its country to assist in the worldwide effort. No apologies were made regarding the _American sensationalist_ comments, but Steve hadn’t expected them to.

~*~

When the interviews could no longer be put off, Tony steered him to a reporter he’d worked with before, and who consistently handled the Avengers with fairness where most others usually fell to one extreme or the other. He and Tony sat next to each other in uncomfortable chairs with too many bright lights on their faces. Steve hated it, and didn’t think he hid it very well, but Tony was in his element. He hated it too, but he swam the bright lights like a shark in the sea.

“Our ally, the colony, has left,” Marie Indes said after covering what Tony referred to as warm-up questions, “But not the same way it came. The world is curious to know what that bright flash was just before the colony appeared. Can you _shed some light_ on that?” she asked with a smile and a little chuckle.

Tony, giving her his best media smile, all teeth and charm, told her that a network of satellites experienced a cascading failure, which produced the world-wide light show and knocked out video feeds from their neighbors. Stark Industries, of course, would be more than happy to assist the owners of the various satellites in getting them operational again. Steve marveled at Tony’s uncanny ability to tell the absolute truth and somehow still lie through his teeth. He just hoped he wasn’t gaping as he observed that masterful misdirection.

Marie asked more questions about the colony, which Steve answered as best as he could without endangering his team. His fall back was, _there’s a lot about the colony we don’t understand_. He smiled wryly as he repeated the phrase, realizing that maybe Tony’s lie by means of the honest truth trick had worn off on him after all.

“One last question, if you don’t mind,” she said, stalling them from getting up after all the agreed-upon questions had been covered. Steve gave her a nervous sidelong look and Tony’s eyes were sharp and suspicious. “How do you justify giving shelter to the person of Loki the Trickster, the man who led the initial invasion of New York three years ago, and was seen over Germany with enemy forces?” she asked, her voice considerably less warm. Before Steve could even get over his shock, she gestured to a screen, where an old picture of Loki’s first visit to Germany three years before was on display.

“Ma’am, I don’t think you have all the facts,” Steve said coolly before Tony could get his mouth open. “And it’s not my story to tell, but I’m not going to have one of my teammates maligned for the sake of a few missing details. Loki Odinson, the brother of Thor, has been held in captivity for over three years by the Chitauri, and I would wager to say they weren’t exactly gentle.”

Tony drew in a breath to stop him, but Steve held up his hand. He wasn’t going to lay out Loki’s obvious traumas on national television, but neither was he going to let this story get legs.

“Are you suggesting that’s an excuse?” Marie asked incredulously.

“No. I’m telling you that my teammate was made, against his will, to participate in something horrible. And despite the control the Chitauri had on him, he single-handedly prevented the invasion from being launched for more than eighteen months. Let me assure you, miss, that had the Chitauri attacked us eighteen months ago, the invasion would have gone very differently. I urge you to keep in that mind before you vilify one of my friends.” He narrowed his eyes at her and she blanched, and then nodded.

“Thank you, Captain Rogers, Mr. Stark. It was a pleasure to speak with you today.”

Steve, still fuming mad, decided he could at least be gracious and summoned up a smile from somewhere when he shook her hand.

“I would thank you,” Loki snarled when they returned to the tower two hours later. He was dressed and looking more like himself as his natural healing made good use of the calories that the team stuffed down him whenever he could be held to a chair long enough. With the color back in his cheeks and his green eyes flashing violently, he looked even more like the Loki Steve remembered from their first encounter. “I would _thank you_ ,” he repeated tightly. “Not to defend me in the future! Next to you feel it necessary to cry _woe is my good friend Loki,_ please keep your infernal mouth _shut_.”

“You’re welcome,” Steve said, not fazed by Loki’s ire in the slightest. He could see from the faint tremble in his hands, the wideness of his eyes that Loki was not angry about the interview as much as he was worried about something else he wasn’t willing to share.

Loki threw his hands up in frustration and stalked away. Tony grinned at his retreating back. “Oh, that guy is gonna be fun.”

~*~

On a Tuesday morning, three months after the invasion, the colony sadly announced that it would go home the next day. Steve knew that it was lonely without the greater consciousness, and especially since the team was gone more often than not. Just like the first time the colony left, Steve couldn’t begrudge it going home. But unlike the first time the colony left, Steve had the opportunity to grow accustomed to having it in his home, to opening the elevator doors and finding his dark blue tentacle waiting to wrap around his waist.

Without needing to ask his team, Steve cancelled everything and asked Jarvis to hold any calls that were not of the world-ending emergency variety. He stripped out of his clothes, freshly selected after his morning shower, and folded down into the colony. The team joined him in a kind of desperate dive, and the colony pulsed alternately in regret and happiness.

 _Steve colony,_ it said, cuddling them tightly. And again, _Steve colony_. It knew the answer, but it still asked, _Steve colony comes home?_

Hating that he had to say it, Steve swallowed down a miserable sob and said, _Steve colony is home_.

Steve let the colony wrap him up and listened mutely as his team murmured unhappily. It was Tony who livened the mood by saying, _I’ve almost got the logic worked out, and someday we’ll come visit._

 _Logic,_ the colony sighed, lighting up in a bright gold flash. For reasons Steve couldn’t understand, the colony was unable to give them the technology that would allow them to use portals the way the colony did, but it was obviously not adverse to Tony figuring it out himself.

 _As soon as we can get things stabilized here,_ Steve said, his heart jumping in excitement. _I promise we’ll come._

Overflowing with joy, the colony tickled him just to feel him laugh, and shortly found all the ticklish spots on the whole team. Loki, shockingly, had ticklish feet, and Thor laughed jubilantly at Loki’s obvious annoyance at displaying the weakness.

They stayed contentedly in the folds of the colony for the rest of the day, watching “Teen Wolf” for Bucky’s enjoyment and Loki’s obvious horror, while Natasha gleefully trounced them all at cards and Tony summarily banned her from ever touching another card within the tower. She responded with a raised eyebrow that made him duck and apologize. He promptly abandoned the card game and crawled over the tentacles to sit in Bucky’s lap. It took less than a minute for him to start criticizing the television show.

 _Connection_ , the colony purred when Bucky dragged Tony into a kiss to stop his complaints over Bucky’s tastes in television. That the result was an actual team orgy to a soundtrack of Korean pop was completely overshadowed by Bruce gasping in panic as he experienced his first voluntary orgasm in over a decade. It took him ten minutes of deep, gasping breaths to get himself under control afterward.

 _My god, Bruce, that was beautiful,_ Tony praised.

 _Bruuuuuce,_ the colony agreed, vibrating in pleasure, flashing white-gold and practically smothering Bruce, who had never engaged the colony before.

 _If you ruin the afterglow for me, Tony, I swear I will key your cars. All of them_ , Bruce warned very faintly, dazed with bliss and completely relaxed in a way that made Steve realize he’d never seen the man without tension around his eyes.

 _Noted,_ Tony said, grinning as he backed off.

“Thor… am I dead?” Loki asked cautiously when the team had drifted off into happy silence, punctuated only by the humming of the colony. Steve couldn’t be entirely sure, but he thought it was trying to sing along with the music, and he wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or horrified.

“I asked the same thing,” Bucky noted from where he was half buried under Tony’s bulk.

“No brother, you are not dead.” A grin spread across Thor’s face while he ran a hand down Jane’s naked back. “I doubt Valhalla would offer anything so wondrous as this.”

“You have strange friends,” Loki concluded, but he didn’t protest Clint’s mouth trailing down his neck.

~*~

They waited on the rooftop once more in the familiar golden glow of the portal. It opened from the other side just as the last rays of the sun slipped below the mountain range of skyscrapers. The colony stretched into the air, shivering happily at the fresh breeze. Its pleasure at being out of the penthouse made Steve feel guilty for keeping it trapped inside, and sad that the world wasn’t yet at a place that could accept the colony roaming free in the streets of New York.

 _We’ll come see you soon,_ Tony promised again as they all stared at the colony’s home world. The tentacles beyond reached up and through the portal. The subcolony, still holding each of them around the waist, reached out with a delicate tentacle and reconnected to the greater consciousness. Knowledge flooded Steve’s mind again, a thousand different landscapes, billions of tiny connections, more sensory input than he could put words to, even richer and more detailed than when the colony came through four months before.

 _Oh, we’re definitely coming to visit soon,_ Clint said, awed.

The colony dragged them all toward the portal and Steve reluctantly put on the breaks before his desires overcame his good sense. _But not right now._

With the equivalent of a disappointed sigh, the colony let them go. Steve held onto his tentacle as the colony was drawn through the portal and taken back into the greater consciousness. The tentacle clung to his fingertips until the last minute, and waved at them as it disappeared through the golden window.

“In Asgard, we do not say farewell,” Loki said, unexpectedly into the saddened silence. “We say, _fight well and return well, or else be well pleased in Valhalla…_ it doesn’t translate as well into English.”

Steve smiled at him and reached out to pull Tony into one side and Bucky into the other. “It’s perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At minimum there will be two more additions to this universe - one detailing Loki's story in the hands of the Chitauri and how he finds himself in the colony, and another with a visit to the colony homeworld, because that needs to happen. Admittedly, I have a better idea of Loki's story than the colony homeworld, but we'll get there. 
> 
> HOWEVER: I would really love to also have a collection of little short fics to add to this universe. I have a few in mind, but I'd like to also shamelessly mine you crafty readers for bunnies and prompts.
> 
> Get involved: 
> 
> Ask me a question - (I.e. "Why WAS Clint underneath the purple blob of hate when it exploded?") and I might write you up an answer in fic form. You're welcome to use the ask function on Tumblr, send me an email, or comment here.


End file.
